Maps & Legends
by SurelyForth
Summary: Kirkwall was never a place Wilhelmina Hawke wanted to call home, but there's a chance the people she meets there might make it worthwhile. Or not. DA2 fic, Act I. Rated T for violence, language and adult situations.
1. Memory

**BioWare** owns everything that has to do with Dragon Age, in all its incarnations, and are the best for letting hacks like me borrow their world and characters for my own amusement.

A world of thanks, in advance, to Sandtigress.

* * *

><p>Everyone always assume that her first memory is of running.<p>

But it's the opposite of running, it's her father's strong arms and the two small bundles in them. He takes a careful seat next to her on the bed so that she can see their round faces, splotched pink and wrinkled. They are not cute, like the baby kittens Gray Mellie keeps, but she knows what they are, somewhere deep inside of her and as acutely as a three-year old can know anything.

"They're _mine_." The one that will be Carver scowls at this.

"Yes, Mina. They _are_ yours," he smiles down at her, pride radiating from his weary green eyes and she knows she's said the right thing. "Remember that always, and no matter what."

* * *

><p>Carver tests her.<p>

"You're too stiff," sweat stings her eyes and her feet ache from sliding around in boots that are meant for someone much larger than herself. "And you have no follow-through."

"I'm not some blademaster from Orlais, Wil," his sword makes a clean arc through the air, but she can read his posture like he's shouting out his next move and manages to easily deflect the blow. "I have a sword. I hit things with it and they die. Eventually."

He has a point. She throws her own weapon away and begins pulling at her gauntlets. They've been practicing for hours behind the Lothering Chantry, their daily exercises not abandoned despite their purpose in town.

"It's not like you'll be challenging the darkspawn to a duel," hands bare, she automatically flexes them, testing for stiffness or pain and is surprised by how easily they give. Either because of nerves or excitement, Carver has been a less challenging sparring partner than usual. "I'd half-expected you to show off in case the recruiter was out."

"I thought about it," he weighs his sword in his hands, striking a fearsome pose that Wil assumes is meant to impress someone who has no idea how to use a blade. "But Mother made it clear that I can only go if you do, so it's no use to me, ruining your chances."

"Oh, shove off," Wil can hardly contain her annoyance, but there's a fair amount of affection in her voice. "You know I could hand you your ass three times before you even realize it's gone."

This earns a sneer, less than Wil is expecting. Carver hated to be reminded that his strength and size meant nothing when up against his sister. Her three year head start and attention to technique meant that she was able to easily dismantle his few advantages, and his temper meant that he had little patience for learning the skills that would bridge the gap.

"You know, Carver, it would be less embarrassing for you if you could just admit that I'm damned good and live with it."

"Ostagar will be our proving ground, sister," he frowns down at her as he secures his blade in its sheath. "We can meet up at the end of every battle and see which one of us has collected the most darkspawn heads."

"Ok, _morbid_," Wil's nose wrinkles at the notion of collecting darkspawn _anything_. "Maybe their pinkies? Or we can keep a mental tally, like normal people."

"Too easy to cheat," his voice is grim, but the corners of his mouth twitch slightly. "Heads are the way to go."

She laughs him off, heading towards the fence separating Chantry property from the well-worn path winding from the merchant's stalls towards the outlying homesteads. Further up the road, perched on a sudden and unlikely hill, sits a windmill that creaks out the seconds and minutes of life in Lothering and forever appears on the verge of collapse. Gathered at the base are a handful of would-be soldiers, split evenly between young farmhands and their fathers. None of them are as well-equipped as she and her brother, but she nonetheless feels disadvantaged by the interest that sparks in their eyes when she approaches.

The fact that they aren't looking at her face _or_ her sword tells her everything she needs to know about this lot.

"That man in the bone armor, he's the one I talked to last week," Carver takes her elbow and, for the briefest of seconds, he's being almost brotherly. Then his hand falls away and he lets out a derisive snort. The man has turned his attention onto them. "Don't screw this up, Wil."

She barely has time to bite back a vitriolic response when they're waved forward by the recruiter, his expression neutral as he runs his eyes over them. He spends more time evaluating Carver, which is fine by Wil. Carver _did_ look every inch the warrior, tall and solidly built, and he often dressed to impress this fact on anyone who might glance his way.

Wil, on the other hand, was...tall. She was strong enough but her ill-fitting armor only accentuated all the ways she didn't fit anyone's idea of what a soldier should look like.

_Skinny legs,_ she can almost hear the recruiter's first snap judgement. _Skinny neck, weedy arms. How can this woman even lift a sword?_

From the way Carver is also staring at her like he didn't know what she was capable of, she can't help but wonder what sorts of things he's told this recruiter for the king's army.

"Name?" The question is so suddenly brusque that Wil fails to respond.

"Hawke, ser," Carver's annoyed. "Carver Hawke."

"And you?"

"Also Hawke. Ser," she takes a deep breath that does little to calm her nerves. _Why am I even nervous? Haven't I been doing the very thing they _want_ me to be doing since I was old enough to lift a plank of wood and beat it against a tree?_ She exhales in a rush. "First name, Wilhelmina."

"Wilhelmina Hawke," he says it like she might be playing a trick on him.

"Wilhelmina. Or Wil," Carver is _radiating_ annoyance. "Or...Hawke. Although that would be confusing with the both of us around."

"I have that name written down," the recruiter smirks and his demeanor relaxes significantly. "One of the templars suggested a Wil Hawke when we were at the Chantry earlier today."

"One of the _templars_?" Wil can barely keep the horror from her voice. There was little she liked less than templars who knew her name _and_ that she might be someone worth suggesting.

"Yeah. A Ser Bryant? Said you could handle yourself."

"I..._we_ both can. More than handle...," she trails off, trying to remember if she's spoken with a Bryant in one of her many attempts to avoid the Chantry while simultaneously trying to seem like she _wasn't_ avoiding the Chantry and..."Oh."

"So you know him?"

She did. He was one of the nice ones, rated by Bethany as a solid "I wouldn't mind if he captured me. But not like _that_, Mina, so don't even start." He was the regular market guard and had always struck Wil as a practical man rather than a _fanatical_ one, and _that_ made all the difference when it came to those who might hunt or hurt her sister.

"Wil," Carver's growl urges her out of her musings and she realizes with a start that they're being directed to a caravan set up on the far side of the chantry. It was there they would receive their orders and supplies as needed. "We have three days before we leave. Thanks for not ruining it for me, by the way. You came across _great_."

"Maker, you're an ass," Wil follows her brother forward as a sudden wave of concern washes over her to replace whatever acrimony his sarcasm evokes. All joking about macabre trophies aside, they were going to _battle_ against godforsaken creatures that only existed to most as legend. "Wait, _three days_? I need more than three days. I promised Bethany I'd help her with harvesting and Mother doesn't even know how to _hold_ a dagger yet, let alone _use_ one."

"What are you worrying about," her concerns are dismissed in a single lift of his broad shoulders. "Three days should be more than enough time for you. You _do_ know how to handle yourself, after all."

_They are yours. Remember that always, and no matter what._

She punches his arm and laughs.

"Fuck you, Carver."

* * *

><p>"So how's a nice human like you end up working for a ring of elven smugglers?" The question comes from Sorrell, an elf who is peering up at her with eyes of startling violet. He's decent company, and the question he asked is a fair one, but she worries about working with him because he's <em>too<em> striking, the sort of person you remembered when the guard showed up with their questions.

"Because the alternative was too creepy," Wil shudders when she thinks about oily Meeran and the way he'd leered at Bethany. Poor Bethany, who was so beyond exhaustion and dehydration at that point she'd have probably handed herself over to the templars had Wil and Aveline not been there to stop her from stumbling straight into the Gallows. "I'd rather _not_ owe anything to a pervy old man if I can help it."

"I guess I can see that," Sorrell chews at the inside of his cheek and studies her for a few minutes. "I used to think all humans looked the same. You and your sister don't, though."

With a sigh, Will sinks against the cargo they were guarding. It had been a long day. A long week. A long _year_.

Actually, not a year. _Eleven months, one week and three days since we were allowed into Kirkwall. Almost two years, including Ostagar. _

"I look like our father," her eyes narrow against moonlight that reflects off the water at the end of the docks. Everything here is so sunbleached white that cloudless nights are sometimes almost as bright as a typical day in Ferelden. "Bethany looks like Mother."

What she does not say is "Carver looks like all of us." She wonders when she stopped automatically adding that every time someone expressed surprise that she and Bethany were related, let alone full siblings. It had been a life-long habit, something the Hawkes had grown accustomed to pointing out whenever they were settling into a new village and the neighbors started showing up with their small welcoming gifts and open curiosity.

"I bet most say Bethany is the pretty one," Sorrell sneaks a glance back at her. He's about her age and handsome. A pale silver scar winds itself across one cheekbone and disappears into an unkempt mop of mouse-colored hair. She'd almost asked him about it one evening, but decided it might be an unpleasant memory. Maker knew that most scars _were_.

"Some people _have_ said that," Wil is bored enough, and Sorrell cute enough, that she's willing to entertain him even if he seems to be coming at her all wrong. "Although most don't state an _open_ preference."

This elicits a small chuckle. "Why risk ruining your chances with both? I have to say, though, I'd disagree. I like your eyes."

She's surprised to hear such a compliment coming from an elf. Although his were particularly beautiful, every elf she'd ever met had liquid eyes that seemed to fill with light as much as reflect it.

"Thanks?"

"You don't believe me," he's on his feet in one quick motion, his heels not quite touching the dock. "They're so...bright. Not sad at all."

It's a genuinely sweet thing to say and, disarmed, Wil is unable to do much more than offer an appreciative half smile. From what she could see, Kirkwall's preferred currency is sadness. And maybe some fear. But mostly sadness. And _hopelessness_.

She hates it here, and is glad that this past year of compromising herself to survive might not leave a lasting mark.

"I think we're in for it," Sorrell's tone remains casual, but Wil catches his meaning immediately and does not react. To anyone observing, they were just an elf and a girl from the slums engaging in ill-advised flirtations when they were supposed to be guarding cargo. Sorrell appeared unassuming enough; sometimes even Wil forgot about the serrated blades he kept sheathed along his wrists, encased in worn but colorful elven cuffs that obscured his forearms and most of his palms.

As for herself, she's dressed for a day in the market. A pair of plain leather boots, black trousers and a loose linen tunic would offer little protection against blades or arrows, but the marked lack of armor or weapons, her own sword hidden just out of reach, would attract far less attention- from _either_ side of the law.

"So much for a quiet night," she inclines her head towards a distant alcove and then studies the group that approaches them.

There's six of them, which is a concern, but the largest of their number is probably no taller than Wil and none of them seem to be that well-equipped, although one is carrying a fine looking short-bow, his fingers playing at the string as the tallest stops them about ten feet short of Sorrell.

"Nice night, knife-ear," his gaze is trained on Sorrell. "But it would be better if you were far, far away from them crates."

_Bold._ Silently, Wil assesses the men again. Three carry daggers, the main and another carry single longswords. And then the bowman.

Wil has learned to be wary of bowmen, but this one is something of a comfort. She's surprised they didn't leave him behind, just out of view. That such simple strategy escapes them speaks very highly of their over-confidence. _Or poorly of their intelligence._

"Only better for one of us." Shaking his head, Sorrell indicates the cargo and Wil. "I've been charged with keeping it safe. All of it."

This amuses the lot, and their attentions shift to Wil, who responds by lowering her chin and drawing her knees together, hoping to come across as nervous and not at all like someone who could possibly give them any trouble.

"Do you think the girl is part of the deal, Lis?" The archer is closest to her and she hates to note that he's ceased toying with his bow to express this curiosity.

"No!" Sorrell's voice breaks as he defends her honor. For a moment, Wil forgets that this is an act and has to fight back the urge to smile. "I'll be skinned alive if I let anyone _near_ her!"

Laughter ensues, the throaty cruel laughing of human men who are completely convinced that there is nothing in between _them_ and what they _want_. It makes Wil seethe inside, especially when a dagger comes out and their merriment turns to aggression as Sorrell is challenged for even _thinking_ they might care whether or not he gets to keep his skin.

"And I'll take off your ears if you _don't_," the way it's whispered is like seduction; Wil visibly winces as the threatening blade wavers dangerously close to Sorrell, thin fabric the only thing between glinting metal and the elf's heart.

"Let him go," her voice wavers. "Let him go and you can..._have_ me."

"Hawke!" And she sees a flash of violet in the moonlight as the man with the dagger grabs Sorrell's arm and drag-shoves him back, sending him staggering past the others. This was not how things were supposed to go, but Wil knows he's smart enough to realize she's just gotten him a prime place for the fight once it starts.

Which will be _soon_.

"Are you part of the shipment? Or something extra?" The leader, Lis, steers the pack towards her, every step taken contributes to the quickening of her heart.

_Calm down, Wil._ The dagger has been sheathed so only the archer has his weapon drawn, but he is so distracted by the prospect of _her_, and _having_ her, he might as well be empty-handed. _Thank the Maker for screwed up priorities, I guess._

"I'm not part of the shipment," she finds her feet, but keeps her shoulders forward and her chin down. "But I _am_ important to the ones who protect it. _Retribution_ important."

"Retribution?" Lis scoffs at her and her lack of _place_. "I find it hard to believe that _anyone_ in Kirkwall would miss _another_ Blighted refugee."

"Or maybe I'm just _that_ good!" Wil's eyes widen as it pops out. Hadn't Mother told her a thousand times that her mouth would be the end of her? She really did _not_ need to be challenging a bunch of armed thugs to research _what_ she was "that good" at.

"I guess I'll just have to see for myself," Lis twists his head to address his men, and Wil catches the glint of teeth bared in the very leer she'd hated so much on Meeran. "Take it all. The cargo goes to Etienne. _She's_ for us. Then we'll decide if the trouble is worth it."

A hand goes out; the archer is reaching for Wil, claiming this prize as his own and it is immensely gratifying when he's stopped dead less than a foot away from her, his face _literally_ frozen between anticipation and shock as a column of frigid air consumes him.

_That's my Bethany. Taking out the archer like I taught you._

It takes a few seconds for the rest of the men to react to what has just become of their companion and, in that pause, Wil hears the moist sound of flesh being pierced followed by an anguished cry as the man furthest from her collapses to his knees, revealing his assassin to be a stonefaced Sorrell.

Then it all starts to happen _fast_ and much of it automatically. Between the icicle and the elf, the men are no longer paying much attention to Wil and she takes full advantage of their distraction to retrieve her sword from its hiding place behind the crates.

Or she tries. The pommel is caught beneath a protruding board and Wil has to contort herself before she can jerk it completely loose, giving Lis time to focus on what she's up to.

"Maker help me, she's got a sword!" He lunges into her, thankfully unarmed. Wil manages to get turned around just as they collide so that she falls back against the cargo rather than faceplanting into a crate or dock or bay.

The full weight of the man above her presses down, crushing the air out of her lungs as he fumbles for his own weapon. His breath is putrid on her face and she can see every dirty pore in his filthy nose. The sword she needs to defend herself is cold in her hand; her arm outstretched and her position beneath him is too awkward for her to get enough leverage to actually _fight_ him.

"I will kill you so hard," he's hissing in her ear when the world goes orange around them. It's accompanied by the smell of summer grass and sunshine, although Wil knows she's the only one who notices. Lis certainly doesn't, as a frantic shriek alerts her to the fact that he's partially aflame and he pulls himself away from her to better address his rapidly burning left boot. Wil's on the move the moment she's free, her sword secure in her grasp as she springs away from the cargo and into the center of the remaining thugs. Besides Lis, there's only two others and one of them is crying as he stabs blindly with a longsword bearing the crest of the Kirkwall City Guard.

_Aveline might be interested in _that_ tidbit._

Without hesitation, Wil strikes out at the panicked man, her weight thrown behind an arcing blow and she's suddenly someplace three years past, a clearing behind the Hawke's small cottage where she and Carver spar while Bethany hurls fireballs at them. Despite giving their mother fits at the time, and potentially drawing unwanted attention to the apostate in their midst, the activity had turned out to be the best training for life in Kirkwall that Wil and her sister could have ever received.

The impact of her swing pulls her into the present and she looks down to see that her blade has buried itself almost halfway into the man with the guard's sword, a clean cut just below his ribcage. Blood spills vivid across her sword's tarnished surface and she and her victim _both_ stare in momentary wonder before she regains herself and kicks him smartly in the lower abdomen. This staggers him back and he falls away from her, relinquishing her weapon as he does and then she's swinging again, this time at a dagger-wielding opponent who is able to dance neatly around his newly deceased comrade and lash at her with more skill than she's expecting.

Her blow is not as graceful as the first; it's something that Carver would pull in a desperate bid to gain the upper hand on his opponent and it goes wide, completely missing its mark.

_Fuck_. The momentum of the strike twists her painfully to the left and leaves her momentarily exposed while she regains her footing. It only takes the one mistake and she grits her teeth as a stiletto bites at her shoulder, the slender shank of steel sliding easily into flesh and muscle and tearing a bit on the withdraw.

It stings. No, it _screams_ and Wil hates how blood feels dripping down her back like thick sweat. Suddenly the night around her is oppressive and unendurable. With a mustering of strength, she yanks her sword back towards the man with her blood on his weapon and, when his jaw is caught, she urges the blade up, looking away before she can see _exactly_ how much damage she's done.

She'd gotten used to flaying darkspawn after only a few days. People, though, would _hopefully_ take a lifetime.

He is thrown away from her, useless and limp on the dock, and it's a few seconds before Wil realizes that they're _all_ on the dock, black and crimson except for the bowman who is very much dead, but neither charred nor stabbed.

"You're on fire, Hawke," Sorrell is nothing if not matter of fact as he comes to her aid, patting at her thigh with his own blistered hands.

"Sorrell!" Wil stops him, the singed fabric mostly extinguished and he's in much worse condition than she is. "Maker's breath, that doesn't look good!"

And it didn't. The elf tries to play it off as Wil examines his hands, cringing as she does so at the angry flesh that is already swollen and mottled white and ash gray.

"This will help!" Bethany appears from beyond the edge of the fight, her place in the alcove abandoned to help her sister and their friend. In her hand is a bundle of elfroot leaves wrapped tightly around a soft bar of medicinal herbs that will ease some of Sorrell's immediate pain. "I hope I didn't hit you on accident!" Her expression is apologetic as she gently applies the herbal paste with the leaves, but Wil can see a frown creasing her forehead.

"No, no," Sorrell is emphatic on this point. "It was them, the man I was attacking was..._flaming_ and it caught me quick, quicker than I thought it would. That's a good lesson to learn- I can't stab faster than fire burns."

"But it was my fire that did it," she's inconsolable on this point and Wil just shakes her head at Sorrell, communicating that Bethany is going to feel the sting of blame no matter what _actually_ happened. "I don't know why we do things like this, Mina. They wouldn't have attacked so soon if you'd not looked like such an easy target."

"No, they would have left and brought even more men back with them," Wil pauses to assess her own injuries. Her tailbone aches, probably from falling against the crates and, her shoulder is growing stiff as the first of the drawn blood dries. "Better to fight six who assume we're not up to the challenge than ten or twelve who think we are. Fairer odds are…_fairer_."

Resignation clear in her voice, Bethany agrees. "I suppose you're right. It doesn't make it any easier, though. I liked this job better when it was all intimidating people and sticking forged notices down our knickers."

Wil can't help but laugh, even though she knows her sister means every word. Working with smugglers was never going to be easy for Bethany but, due to their success, Athenril was getting bigger jobs that she would only entrust to them. Going by the smoldering corpses around them, Wil decides tonight is a failure.

_At least Bethany is unscathed. _

"Maybe you should join me, Wil," Sorrell's burns are covered and he's regarding her with those eyes again, and her cheeks tingle with heat as she remembers their conversation from before the attack. It seems a strange place for her mind to go now, with her shoulder and the mess of bodies, but life is strange and he isn't unattractive in the slightest...

"Sorrell says there's a healer in the undercity, and he won't charge anything," Bethany is avoiding looking at her sister now. She's a touch unnerved by injuries, especially when they involve Wil, and if Sorrell is suggesting a healer, then there must be a _lot_ of blood happening.

"It's not _that_ bad, I promise. He only got me _once_," forcing a laugh, Wil kneels down next to one of the motionless thugs, carefully pulling at his garments in search of anything that might earn them some extra coin at the market. "Besides, someone has to stay with the cargo until it's time for the pick-up."

_And it won't be you, Beth._

"I'll do it!" Sorrell's face pales under his enthusiasm and Wil crinkles her nose in silent refusal. She won't leave him alone, and she can't leave Bethany here without her. He _knows_ this. "Ok, fine. It was worth a try. Promise me you'll have it looked at before I see you again, all right? I know how you are."

"That depends. Will I be seeing you soon?" She shifts to peer up at him through messy hair that is now plastered to her face with sweat and hopes that the eyes he thinks are pretty, and not sad, are all he sees.

"I...," a smile blooms across his face. "I hope so."

Another appreciative grin is all he receives in return. He must find it a satisfactory response because he shuffles backwards a few steps before he realizes he's about two inches from going into the bay, and _then_ he turns away after one last, anticipative, look.

"Do you really like him, Mina?" Bethany joins her on the dock, her mouth pursed in disgust even as her fingers pluck expertly at the cloth sash their thug wore over his chestguard. Her efforts pay off in the form of a small iron dagger and two pewter rings tucked into the garment's folds. Wil decides to not answer her sister's question. She doesn't know if she _really_ likes the violet-eyed elf or if she's just euphoric after battle and flattered by his attention. Besides, Bethany always worries about these things.

Fashioned into a makeshift sling, the front of Wil's tunic is already full of small trinkets. "Oooo, is that buckle real silver?" She cuts it off it's belt, ignoring how the sudden jerk as her knife breaks through the leather strap sends bolts of agony down her back. After wiping the blood on her sleeve, the shirt ruined anyway, she examines the slightly curved disc. It's engraved with eagles in flight circling a wyvern. The image means nothing to her, so it gets added to her collection for market. "We should be able to make a decent trade, even if it's not."

"Aren't we sad? Like crows or raccoons. Do you remember how Carver would trap them?" Bethany has moved on to the archer, who makes for a less gory task. "And how mad was _Father_?"

Wil remembers it well, the twine and twig cages Carver hid along a creek near their home. He lured the greedy fat raccoons in with shiny brass buttons he'd found on an old dress of mother's, one of the few she'd kept from her life as a noble in Kirkwall. Mother was less angry than Father'd been, perhaps because _he_ felt guilty for stealing the life that dress represented. Whatever the reason, Carver had been forced to abandon his new hobby and tasked with replacing the stolen buttons with his own money. _And_ his own hands.

"To think, we never would have known our brother was such a gifted seamstress had he not been caught," knees aching from being pressed to the dock, Wil abandons her search and makes her way back to the cargo, arranging her loot in a neat pile before returning to the corpse.

"Carver could have taken a job as a dressmaker's apprentice in Kirkwall!" There is laughter in Bethany's words, undercut as it is by the faintest ache of loss. "At the very least, he could be here to help with these bodies."

Wil has to agree that he'd come in handy. Corpses were cumbersome at the best of times, but after a fight and a few injuries, moving a perfectly average man was like juggling Qunari.

Or so Wil assumes. She doubts she'll ever get an opportunity to _touch_ a Qunari, let alone _juggle_ any, but they were around and _huge_ so it seems an apt description of how very much rolling the six bodies over the edge of the dock is going to suck.

"Knowing Carver, he'd only handle the ones _he_ killed himself," Wil catches one of her own victims by the shoulders and Bethany takes the feet. They move carefully in unison, as this one is nearly bisected and neither one was terribly keen on having to deal with anything that might fall out. "Or maybe he'd have been able to get a _real_ job, with Aveline in the guard. Ok, on one...two...three!"

With practiced precision, the Hawke sisters swing the dead man out and into the water, the splash from his impact coating their boots in saltwater. They watch as he bobs on the surface, his midsection obscured by lapping waves; he might be taking a nap in the bay, peaceful beneath the moonlight.

_I killed that man_, the thought comes with a physical pain in her throat. _I killed that man so that we could get into this Makerforsaken city and make a home for ourselves. _

"One down, five to go," Bethany wipes her hands together, almost absentmindedly, and Wil realizes they are coated in blood.

"Why don't you go up closer to the front of the dock and watch for more thugs? The last thing I need is a surprise ambush."

"Are you sure? I could always set the rest on fire," her cheek twitches and Wil recognizes that catch, the one _she'd_ learned to hide.

"Perish the thought, sister. The last thing we need is to attract cold hobos and the starving masses with an impromptu man roast," Wil begins to gather the next body and Bethany leaves in silence, because she knows.

* * *

><p>The market buzzes around them, claustrophobic even though the sun has barely risen and certainly not high enough to break the walls of Lowtown. To Wil, the crush of bodies is a nightmare and she's convinced she will never see a bed again.<p>

Bethany offers worried glances, but Wil insists that they unload everything before they return home. Leandra barely approves of her daughters' current "profession" as it is, if she knew they were supplementing their meager incomes by selling off the flotsam and jetsam that remained of those they bested, she might never let Bethany out of Gamlen's house again.

"That buckle got us four silver!" Bethany presses the coins into Wil's hand and she clutches them tightly even though it does everything to exacerbate the burning that has extended itself from her shoulder, to her waist, and along her arm to the fingertips.

"Maybe it'll cover the amputation! Heh," it's a feeble laugh that Wil hopes distracts from the rawness in her voice. "Although...you can't really amputate a shoulder. There's...vital _things_ there, right? Things that are _vital_."

"Maker's breath, Mina," Bethany catches her sister's arm and begins to lead her towards the alley that cuts from the market to the tenement they've been begrudgingly calling home for the past eleven months. "Mother is going to kill me for letting you stay out like this."

"No," she pulls away from her sister's grasp and then flings the freed arm back around Bethany's shoulders, leaning against her for support. "Mother is going to kill _me_ for letting _you_ let _me_ stay out like this."

"You're _delirious_."

"And right."

"That, too," cheeks reddening, Bethany looks vaguely uneasy. "I can al-"

"Hawke!" The voice catches both women off guard, although Wil doubts that it sends Bethany's stomach into a flurry the way it does hers.

"Sorrell!" Wil goes to face him and the whole of Kirkwall spins wildly around her.

"Mina!"

She's saved from falling by two pairs of hands that steady her, then looked over by two sets of eyes, so very different from each other but both radiating vast amounts of concern.

"I knew you should have come with me!" Sorrell is pulling a small jar from a pouch on his belt and, even though his hands are bandaged, he isn't acting as if they'd been seriously burned not hours before. "You're lucky, though. I told the healer I had a friend who was too proud to abandon a job even after taking a knife to the back, and he gave me this."

He uncorks the jar and Wil is hit by the warm scent of medicinal herbs, honeysuckle, and the distinctive whiff of an afternoon recently scrubbed clean by a sudden summer storm.

"Odd," she obediently shrugs out of the thin cloak she'd worn to cover her bloodied tunic so that Bethany can get the mixture on. "I want to live in there."

"She's delirious," Bethany reasserts her earlier assessment, trying hard to not flinch at the sight of Wil's injury and failing in a miserable way. "Sorrell...I can't. Can you do this?"

"I cleaned it, at least," Wil frowns at her sister, but not at her sister. Sorrell wasn't _exactly_ right in saying she was too proud to see a physician, but she was _hesitant_. She'd yet to meet a physician in Kirkwall that didn't dismiss her out of hand as nothing more than the worst kind of Lowtown thug- a _Fereldan_ Lowtown thug. It was enough that she couldn't dispute their claims against her, she didn't have to suffer under their shoddy treatment _because_ she of it.

Fortunately, Sorrell is able to handle a bit of gore and he works quickly, his hands so dexterous when they really should _not_ be and Wil realizes why when poultice seeps into the wound and then seems to suck the pain that has settled in most _everywhere_ right out of her body.

"Potent, isn't it?" Sorrell's finished, and he moves her shirt back to where it should be, his fingertips deliberately dragging along her throat as he does. Between him and the poultice, she's feeling less like falling over and more like... "I keep a room at the Loon. It's not too far from here."

He speaks in a rush, too fast and too low for Bethany to catch and his hand is lingering close to her and his eyes are impossibly beautiful, as is his hopeful smile when Wil nods, not quite willing to confirm aloud what they'd just agreed to.

"Let me take Bethany home first, maybe wash off...oh. _Some_ of the blood and grit. The rest will just have to be bandaged."

"I can help with that," he nods towards Bethany. "I can walk you home. You live in that square, don't you? Near the bridge to the alienage."

"What?" This stops Wil and a frown creases her brow. How did he know where they lived? She certainly hadn't told him. "No. I...we just try to keep a low profile there. It's just easier that way. You would stand out."

"Would I?" He's startled by the shift in Wil's tone, and probably by the way she's positioned herself between him and Bethany, a subconscious response to _threat_. "I don't see how another poor elf that close to the alienage would catch anyone's eye...but if you would prefer."

For a second, Wil almost relents. Sorrell has never given her any indication that he cares one way or another about Bethany's magic, and he's been a solid partner on several difficult jobs. _And handsome. He is _that_. And eyes. _But there's still so much she doesn't know about him. Like how he got that scar, and why does he live in a tavern? She doesn't even know if he really likes her, or if he's just lonely, too. And if he _does_ like her, he might be looking for more than she is prepared to give _anyone_ and what if he retaliated by ratting them out to templars?

"I do prefer," she manages a bright smile, to soften the decision. "But I'll be there. Promise."

He nods, seemingly pacified by the compromise of expression and they take their separate paths home.

_Home_, where Leandra is exasperated by the state of their clothes, blood stains being so hard to get out, and she clucks over Wil's shoulder before remarking on the poultice.

"It smells nice," Leandra pushes Wil's hair out of her eyes, her mouth turning down at the corners in maternal disapproval of the messy way it's worn. "You should be more careful, Wilhelmina. One of these days, Bethany is going to try to save you and..."

"Did I bet money on that, Beth?" Wil makes eye contact with her sister, who has settled in an overstuffed chair in the corner. Bethany offers a quick shake of her head and it's obvious that she's trying not to laugh. "I _should_ have. You're very predictable, Mother."

"You know I worry about my girls," tears mist Leandra's eyes and Wil feels the familiar ache of guilt and wishes she could just keep her mouth shut every now and again. "And with the dog and Gamlen in Starkhaven until next week, and I saw that templar…"

"What?" Wil and Bethany react in unison, Bethany flinging herself out of her chair and moving to the doorway that led to the back room. There is a small gap between their wall and the adjacent dwelling and they had decided when they first moved in that it would serve as her hiding place in the event that the Chantry ever came calling.

"Where and when, Mother," it takes Wil three strides to cross the room and bar the door. "And what does he look like?"

Leandra describes the man and Wil positions herself next to the door, which is where she'll remain, more or less, until Gamlen returns with Bello. Bethany tries to remind her about her promise to Sorrell, but Wil dismisses the idea with a scowl, even though she likes the way his face flickers in her mind at the sound of his name. He has a scar, and she'd not mind learning where it came from. Even if it _was_ painful.

"He'll understand," Wil leans back and winces as her shoulder presses against the door frame. The poultice is no barrier spell; she'll still have to be careful until it's healed. "And if he doesn't, then he's an ass."

Bethany opens her mouth to apologize.

_They are yours. Remember that always, and no matter what._

"I'd be the worst sister in the world if I wandered off for..." Wil rolls her eyes upward to cover for any awkwardness. "Besides, you're the only proof I have that I'm not _completely_ terrible. I think even Mother would quit me if something happened to you."

"That's not true!" Leandra sounds genuinely hurt by this, so Wil refrains from suggesting another wager.

Instead she slips into readiness, waiting for the slightest scrape of activity in the hallway beyond the door, or for the scent of Chantry incense and sweat soaked undergarments to waft through the cracks in the door.

It's one things for the Templars to catch them out in the streets, or in the market. But this is their _home_, and mages aren't supposed to have homes and people they love that love them in return. It's like an _affront_ to most templars, and enough of one to bring the law crashing down on the mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, who might have the audacity to want to see their family whole and _no one_ imprisoned for an accident of birth.

Wil keeps her sword in front of her, balanced on its pommel, the blade pressed flat between her steady hands. Convinced of their safety, Leandra goes about her chores and Bethany prepares herself for bed. Normal routines for normal people, and one curious man in a metal suit could destroy it all.

* * *

><p>Her second memory isn't of running, but of holding perfectly still.<p>

She doesn't need to be still any longer. The man who'd asked her for directions to Gosport, his voice kind even echoing as it did from within his helmet, is on the ground by her feet, dead as the gutted hogs that hang from the market stalls on Saturdays, but her scalp still burns where his steel fingers had been buried in her hair _and_ _pulling_, and her throat aches where he'd pressed the blade against it, not caring that it bit her flesh.

Blood streams hot all the way to her stomach but Father is trying to tell her that it's just a small scratch as he runs one rough fingertip along the place it hurts the most, her vision turning blue but no comfort seeps into her bones. Alarming, when normally _blue_ meant _comfort_.

"Wilhelmina, stay with me," Father's hands go to her cheek. He holds her face and, although she knows they are his green eyes in front of her, there is something unfamiliar there that worries her enough to break her trance.

"Are you _afraid_, Mal?" She calls him by his grown-up name, because it seems _right_ at this moment. The body besides her suddenly has more presence. "Are you sorry?"

"Yes," his hands abandon her cheeks and he cups the back of her head with one palm, gently, because he knows it must hurt. The other, trembling, draws across the spot on her throat again. "But not because I killed him."

"Because you did what he wanted you to do," she swallows back something acidic and sharp, remembering everything she'd been told about the men wrapped in metal and fine skirts of purple and gold. It comes with a flash of sunlight caught on a silver pendant- a thin-bladed sword consumed by white fire. That is the image she sees below her, only large and boldly worn in black on the man's chest. "You did what he wanted, but he wouldn't stop hurting me."

Father's nod is grave, his mouth tightening at the corners, and his eyes grow hard with resolution.

"He left me no choice," his voice is steady because he is speaking words not just _to_ her, but _into her_. This is the lesson she _must_ learn, even more than _they are yours_. "This is why we worry, and this is why we keep to ourselves. This is why we run, because there are men who would try to force their will upon another and hurt whoever they can to do so."

Even a little girl in a play-stained dress and worn leather boots.

"You were brave, Mina. I always knew you would be," Father stands and scoops her up, settling her against his chest and this time the blue light brings comfort and everything is almost right again.

_Almost right_ because part of her is as lost as the dead templar they leave behind them- that part that strayed from the edge of the yard to speak to the man on the wooded path. She's young but she knows what she did was wrong. She also knows it's why dinner is eaten in tense silence and sleep is not found in a familiar bed but hours later than normal, bouncing between Bethany and Carver in the back of a borrowed wagon and on a road to someplace else. Father tells her it's all right because they're all together, but Wil sees it in his eyes.

Disappointment.

And all she can do is learn from her mistake and swear to never let it happen again.


	2. Setting the Wheels

"Aveline Vallen! Just the guardswoman I've been looking for," Wil Hawke throws her arms out at the back of a red-headed tower of a woman.

A red-headed tower of a woman who _ignores_ her.

"So _that's_ just rude. I came all this way to see you, shaming myself before the very grandeur of Hightown and the Viscount, and you're more interested in a…" her nose wrinkles as she tries to read the parchment sheet posted just beyond Aveline's heavily pauldroned shoulder.

"It's a _duty roster_, Hawke, and I'm not ignoring you," Aveline still doesn't turn around. "I _just_ saw you."

Wil cocks her head and considers the past few weeks. Much of it has been spent tying up loose ends with Athenrial, running poor saps up for outstanding debts, and looking for the sort of work that required _less_ dumping of bodies into bays, sewers and conveniently located mineshafts than _smuggling_ had.

"It's been weeks." Pause. "At least a week, I think. It doesn't matter, though, because I miss you so, Lady Vallen."

"Don't start with me," Aveline whips her head to fix Wil with a stern look. "And you're right. We haven't spoken for a while, but that doesn't mean I haven't been keeping an eye on you and _not_ liking some of the things I'm seeing. Watch yourself around that Bartrand fellow. I've not heard one good thing about him, or the company he keeps."

"Excusing the fact that you've been spying on us again, Bartrand's brother isn't that bad. Have you _met _Varric, by the way?"

Both women turn to the dwarf who is standing a fair distance away, beside a clearly uncomfortable Bethany. They are both positioned near the doorway to the main barracks and, while she's looking like she would rather disappear, he has his head held _just_ so, as if he is tuning himself to the world around him.

"I've _heard_ of him." From her tone, it's all been bad. "Enough to know that it's probably not the best idea to let him be _eavesdropping_ in the barracks."

This brings Varric in, his face brightening in defense.

"Eavesdropping," he waves off Aveline's accusation with a scoff. "Such an ugly word. I am simply…gathering resources."

"With his ears!"Wil turns to Aveline, a smile twisting the corner of her mouth up. "_Completely_ on the level. "

"We'll see about that." With a slow shake of her head, the guard returns her focus onto Wil and Wil notices, not for the first time, the faint lines that crease the outer edges of Aveline's eyes. They'd not been there when they met in Lothering and Wil wonders if it's the memory of her late husband that keeps Aveline driven to exhaustion, or what must be the thankless task of maintaining order here in Kirkwall. Speaking of order…, "I might have some work for you and Bethany, Hawke. If you're interested. I'd assume that's why you're here, but it's hard to tell with you."

Wil _did_ have a tendency to just _show_ up, sister in tow, to give Aveline a hard time. Or to _pretend_ to give Aveline a hard time, while Aveline pretended that she hated every second of it. The truth was, both were looking for reassurance in the other.

Whether they'd ever be able to admit that….Wil has her doubts.

"Your suspicion is a correct one…about us looking for work," Wil studies her for a second before deciding that Aveline can be trusted with the truth. "We're trying to make money to partner with Bartrand on his expedition. Varric thinks fifty sovereigns and some secret Grey Warden knowledge of the Deep Roads will get us in."

"Is _that_ all?" The smirk Wil gives Aveline in response is knowing, and the older woman can only shake her head. "I have no idea how you plan on earning that kind of coin, or whether I want you to succeed at all. However, you're the best person to help me out."

"So you'll be enabling these mad schemes? I _would_ ask what you did with my Aveline, but I know better than to question good fortune."

"No you don't, and it's like I said. You're the best person for this. An ambush on the Wounded Coast. I have no idea what they hope to find, as it's been a quiet beat and there are no caravans scheduled in until next week. But I know what I've been told, and I need to do something about it. Give me a few minutes and I'll head out with you," she turns on her heel to return to the barracks.

"Friendly," Varric gives up his_ resource gathering_ and he and Bethany follow Wil out of the guards' annex into the grand foyer of the Viscount's Keep. "Although I'll admit it. I would _not_ want to cross that woman."

"Oh, she's not so bad," Wil's shoulders lift in a small shrug. "And she might come in handy if this Grey Warden turns out to be less than cooperative."

"Not even, Hawke," Aveline has emerged and she's no longer carrying her guard shield, but her late husband's templar shield, the surface gleaming like liquid. "I refuse to challenge a Grey Warden. That's not a fight any of us can win."

"Ah, not _any_ of us, Aveline. _All_ of us."

"My ass."

And all Wil can do is laugh.

* * *

><p>Laughing is not really happening in Lirene's Fereldan Imports. As a matter of fact, Lirene's Fereldan Imports might be where laughter came to die. Crowded, dark and smelling of wet dog despite a noticeable <em>lack<em> of dogs, Wil has no idea how anyone could come here expecting to find any type of help or hope.

_Or maybe my life is just that good, compared to what it could have been. _Tendrils of guilt wrap themselves around her disdain and Wil finds herself automatically dropping a handful of silvers into a warped donation box set up near the back of the room.

It takes them nearly an hour of waiting before Lirene is free to speak to them, interruptions slowing even the most standard exchange of information. Before Wil can open her mouth, a young man with blood-slicked hands and a palpable sheen of despair elbows his way past her and flings himself against the counter.

"You have to help me," emotion chokes his voice so he's close to incomprehensible. "Someone...someone. My son was run over. A merchant in his cart just..."

He breaks with a sob; Wil is forced to look away from this show of raw anguish.

"Maxwell," Lirene speaks in such a way that makes her voice crack out and over the din surrounding her. A boy of no more than fourteen materializes at her elbow and, a silent nod his only instruction, Maxwell takes the man with the injured son and leads him away. With him gone, Wil is gestured forward again to be fixed upon by hard brown eyes in a quietly exhausted face. "If you _need_ assistance, I can take your name. But you don't look like you _need_ assistance."

And if there was any more emphasis placed on _need_, it would snap beneath the weight of her contempt for Wil and her companions.

"Don't worry, we're not here for handouts or work," Wil keeps her voice as light as possible. "We won't burden your operation any more than we have to."

"If you don't need assistance, then are you here to trade?" Lirene is already over this conversation, her hands fidgeting with her logbook and her attention on the refugees past Varric, who is in the rear of their entourage.

"No, actually. I'm looking for a Fereldan Grey Warden," Wil watches the woman's face for an indication that _Fereldan Grey Warden_ means anything to her, but her expression remains impassive.

"I'm sorry. The only Fereldan Wardens I know are ruling Denerim these days. Again, I'm sorry."

Neither _I'm sorry_ is sincere.

Fortunately for Wil, Fereldans can always be counted upon to eavesdrop and insert themselves into conversations that haven't requested their presence. A woman who'd been perusing Lirene's small selection of rings is more than happy to play her role.

"That healer is a Grey Warden, right?" She looks at Lirene and then back to Wil, her eyes expectant. "That's what I heard, anyway."

_This is...promising._

"Perhaps he was," Lirene's words are measured and snapped off with cold precision. "But he's not _now_, and I won't have him interrupted by...the curious and their _stupid_ questions."

"Suspicious," Aveline's comment is quiet as breath and Wil has to agree with her assessment of Lirene's behavior.

"Then rest assured that I will only ask very _smart_ questions," it's meant to be a reassureance, but Wil regrets saying it because Lirene's brows pull tight in anger and this must happen often, because the room around them goes silent as she explains:

"I am not _laughing_. The refugees in Kirkwall have no one who will help them but the healer, no one who is so giving with his time and his energy. You cannot imagine the compassion he has shown the poorest and sickest among us, and never asking for anything in return," Lirene finishes with a scowl. "His is a thankless task, yet he does it without complaint."

"Wow." Despite it being tinged with no small amount of open hostility, Lirene was speaking from someplace deeply true and Wil can't help but be impressed. "Tell me he's got killer eyes and a nice smile, and I'll marry him on the spot!"

She expects another rebuke, but instead the woman softens. Maybe she heard something honest in what Wil has said, which would be a neat trick. Wil herself isn't quite certain if she meant any of it.

"He does have the eyes, actually. But I've never seen him smile...," her gaze rakes down Wil's face, to her clean but worn tunic, and back up. "He appears burdened by unfathomable sadness. For that, and for his selflessness, I would not see him carried off by templars just for giving of himself so readily."

Something must have clicked in Bethany, because Wil feels a hand on her arm and hears:

"We would _never_ turn anyone over to the templars, ma'am." Then, even though Wil cannot see her, she knows that Bethany is giving her saddest eyes. _Giving, as if she doesn't mean every word she says_. "Never."

Lirene relents, and tears a bit of vellum off of a scroll before scrawling a brief message across it.

"His name is Anders, and the truly needy know to look for the lit lantern in the undercity. Give this to him," she presses the vellum into Wil's outstretched hand and Wil doesn't wait to see what's written there.

_She donated without being asked._

"I was expecting something...meaner."

Lirene frowns and puts her hand out, palm forward, as if to ward them away, and Wil does not push her luck further.

To the undercity, and the lit lantern, and a Grey Warden named Anders.

"Is Anders even a _name_?" Varric is wondering out loud. "I thought it was a people. Like Antivan, or Rivaini or..._lesian_."

"I think that falls under the realm of stupid questions, Varric," Aveline helps them break through the crowd that has only grown denser between them and the exit. "And, bless her, Hawke has promised to not ask any of those."

"He'll _have_ to tell her if they get married." They fall out of the shop and simultaneously gasp in the open air, despite the fact that Lowtown was barely less close or _pungent_. Raising one black eyebrow in amusement, Bethany fixes her sister with a _look_. "I think we should place wagers on this."

"On what?" Wil's confused for a moment, then warmth spills across her cheeks as she recalls getting caught up in Lirene's barrage of compliments. "Andraste's _ass_, Bethany."

"No, I think Sunshine is right," his hand already on his coinpurse, Varric's figuring out how all of this could work. "Maybe we should take this to the Hanged Man, get some of the regulars involved."

"Why would they want to?" The idea of anyone betting on her love life is amusing yet baffling to Wil. _Flames_, the idea of her _having_ a love life to bet on would be _hysterical_ if it wasn't so _pathetic_. "Besides, it's too subjective. One person's killer eyes is another person's..._killer_ eyes. And there might be a _reason_ he never smiles, besides being a human tragedy who surrounds himself with sick refugees. And lives in a sewer."

"A dead tooth, maybe?" The coinpurse is abandoned. "You're no fun anymore, Hawke."

Aveline's completely thrown, "Anymore? How long have the two of you known each other?"

"As of right now?" Wil and Varric hold up their fingers in feigned confusion before Varric shrugs and admits. "Two days. Almost exactly."

Her mouth is opening for another question when Wil slams into a sudden and solid body that had not been in her path seconds before. The impact staggers her back and then the first flicker of fear sets at her stomach when she realizes they're surrounded by a group of at least eight, most of whom are wearing leather breastplates over their filthy wool tunics and all of whom are armed.

"Uh..." It's not very often that Wil is randomly accosted, especially in broad daylight. "Have we met?"

The man who seems to be leading them is Gamlen's age, graying but with an aura of strength that her uncle _definitely_ did not possess.

"No, but we overheard ya asking 'bout the healer," his lips curled back to reveal a mouth full of jagged, broken teeth. "He's the one bit of hope us Fereldans have, yeah? Ya can't...it wouldn't be-"

"Ser, _no_," Bethany interrupts, her voice urgent, low. "We're Fereldan, too, and trying to avoid the templars ourselves."

_Great, Beth. Why not announce to _everyone_ here that you're a mage? _

But it works. The man, although startled by her admission, withdraws with a quick nod towards King Alistair and he and his thugs slip back into an alley that runs past the foundries.

"Weird," Varric is obviously put off by this second show of support for the Grey Warden. "Maybe we should find another way in? This is starting to seem...complicated."

And, for a few minutes, Wil considers it. She's not terribly attached to the idea of going to the Deep Roads, despite the potential for wealth beyond her very healthy imagination. The only reason she and Bethany had approached Bartrand was because they'd seen an announcement in the Hightown market and thought it might be a step above the debt-collecting jobs they'd taken up.

_But debt-collecting sucks, because everyone has a sad story to tell. And smuggling sucks, because..._smuggling_. It's not even a pretty _word_. And Bethany can't be a guard and _I'd_ have to work with the templars and stay in those creepy barracks. _

"Are they hiring waitresses at the Hanged Man?" Wil contemplates the tavern, which she's visited only a few times this past year, including her visit to Varric's rooms the evening before. It was absolutely what one might expect out of a tavern named the Hanged Man, in a place called Lowtown. Still, a job was a job, and she could hold her own against men with..._eyes_, and grabby hands. "I can do pretty much anything from surly, to flirty, to just a means to a drunken end. I'll even wear dresses and paint myself like an Antivan on Satinalia."

"I don't know, Hawke. The Hanged Man has enough bloodstains on the floor, I don't think it needs any help in that department," Varric is relenting. Reluctantly. "All right, all right. Let's go crawl through the upper sewers and try to avoid causing an international incident."

"And no stupid questions." _I know how you can be_, Aveline's eyes say it all. "I have no stake in this, I just don't want to hear them."

Fortunately for Aveline, Bethany begins to voice concerns about being seen with another apostate and Aveline is quick to volunteer to take her home. Despite Wil's protests that Beth is being silly, they end up compromising. Varric with Wil, and the other two women waiting well away of the clinic.

But first they have to endure how the undercity, or _Darktown_ for the naming impaired, wore on them in a physical way as they picked through ragged clusters of refugee camps, usually five or six patchwork lean-tos centered around a fire-pit strewn with rat bones and long cold ash. Everywhere they look are women with dark -ruined eyes that have not seen direct sunlight for weeks, maybe months, and their equally wan children huddled just inside their shelters, too hungry to do more than sit up in the morning and _stare_ until it's time to sleep again.

Their immobility is a blessing, really, since most of these "settlements" are merely a few feet distant from perilous drop-offs; the miners that used to work these tunnels had cut away hunks of earth and stone to form long, narrow shafts that now terminate in either water, shit, or more refugees.

"They should call this place Filth," Wil carefully sidesteps a pile of human excrement and pushes down on the co-mingling of pity and disgust that rises in her throat.

"What about Hoboville?" Despite living in what many would consider squalid conditions, Varric is clearly out of his element here. He steps with more delicate caution than even Bethany, who has moaned at least three times about her boots being ruined. "Oh, Andraste. I think I see the clinic up ahead. Or a light, at least. And we must be in the nice part of town, because I smell fresh air. Or something that's close enough."

"Then we'll stay back here," Bethany wedges herself into a corner provided by a rough cut staircase and gestures for Aveline to join. Wil wants to, once again, remind her that there are no templars here and they don't have to tell the healer or anyone else that she's a mage. Instead, she keeps her tongue and Bethany is visibly grateful. "Be nice to him, Mina."

Nice is Bethany's thing, not her own, but Wil _had_ promised Lirene...

"Let's get this over with," Varric is shuffling ahead. "I'd normally do the talking, but you've more experience with mages who have a right to be nervous."

It's true, but it's not something that guarantees success, especially when she's actually being confronted by the Warden himself.

_Anders_, Wil reminds herself, although his name is the least of it.

There's his clinic, which seems carved from the darkness itself although, upon inspection, it's probably cleaner than Gamlen's shack in Lowtown and, at the very least, high venting gaps cut near the ceiling allow fresh air in to circulate.

There's his appearance, which is like the _idea_ of an apostate that no one who'd ever actually _met_ one might have; quasi-robes and pauldrons adorned with ragged feathers.

The man himself isn't quite as Lirene had described, his eyes less _killer-in-a-sexy-way_ than _angry_ when he turns to confront them, staff in hand and voice echoing with something not entirely earthly that turns the air around them insubstantial for the briefest of moments while he regards her and Varric expectantly, waiting for them to explain why _exactly_ they were there and a threat to his _sanctum of healing and salvation_.

"We're not templars, if that's what you're asking," she means it to be a comfort, but the sigh that comes from beside her indicates how she missed the mark.

"Which is, of course, the first thing a templar would say," Varric looks up at her, one eyebrow cocked in amusement. "And a _dumb_ templar."

"But I'm _not_ a-," Wil stops herself before she goes too far; Anders is still in a threatening posture and she remembers Aveline's warning from earlier. If a fight broke out, she and Bethany probably wouldn't be able to make it to her before the mage fireballed her to death. Knowing this, she decides that her _usual_ approach might work better. "I never really expected a Grey Warden to be much on healing _or_ salvation. Or perhaps I have been horribly misinformed about the nature of the Blight."

It's _Grey Warden_ that lowers his defenses, his face scrunching in disgust as if the words were something with a foul scent.

"Have you been sent here by the Wardens?" Amber eyes search restlessly between Wil and Varric, and his tone is indignant, accusatory. "Well don't even _think_ I'm going back. Those bastards made me get rid of my cat. Poor Ser Pounce-a-lot; he _hated_ the Deep Roads."

_Oh._ Wil doesn't even struggle against the amusement that surfaces in her, along with something else that's far harder to identify. _Oh, this is _perfect_._

"You had a cat? Named Ser _Pounce_-a-lot?" Aveline's ears are probably burning red, even at a distance, but Wil can't help herself. "In the Deep Roads?"

"He was a gift," suspicion still colors his words, but his brow relaxes from its scowl and the corners of his mouth even twitch a bit in something resembling humor. "Noble, too, like my friend. Slightly less skilled at killing darkspawn, although he _did_ smack a genlock on the nose once. We were going to make him an honorary Grey Warden, before...," clearly this is where things fell apart for the mage and his battlecat, the joy that had just been brightening his face and words quickly turning to bitterness. "It was decided he made me too soft, so I left him with someone I knew in Amaranthine."

"And that's why you left the Wardens?" Normally Wil wouldn't even consider such a scenario, where a man could just walk away from a notoriously secretive order of warriors and over a _cat_, but it's apparent that _normal_ and _Anders_ were two things that just didn't fit together.

He obviously dislikes this question and for a few seconds, Wil experiences a surge of conflicting emotions, as if his feelings were a physical presence. _It's his eyes_, she has to will herself to hold his gaze. _Or maybe his magic._ Bethany had a calming effect on her, but this is the opposite of that, as if he's pulling something up through her skin and _forcing_ her to feel what he feels.

"Despite what you may think, I'm no _deserter_. I might miss out on a few parties, but the Wardens don't work like an army. You _can_ leave."

"So you're _not_ hiding from them here?" Shaking off the lingering traces of his anger, she frowns. _I really don't want to get into this any furthe_r. "It doesn't matter. I'm as much of a Warden as I am a templar, and I just came to see if you could help us with an expedition we're planning to the Deep Roads. I'm willing to pay."

"Pay?" For a second his eyes widen in mock delight, then he resumes scowling. "If I wanted money, then I am going about it all _wrong_. The last thing I want is to go tramping around the Blighted...although."

That's when he gets the _look_. The _look_ that Wil has spent the past four years of her life getting because she's capable and willing to do a lot of things that most people avoid. _And with good reason_.

"A favor for a favor," he runs a pale hand through his honey-colored hair, his fingers stopping to twist at the end of one strand. "I have maps of the Deep Roads in this area. If you help me, they're yours."

"Just that easy, Hawke," Varric is dubious again. Wil can't blame him, but the reward would be a substantial one, far more than they'd been hoping for in the first place. He realizes _that_ at least, "Bartrand wouldn't be able to say no to maps, even if you delivered them by smacking him upside the head. As an aside, I recommend that you deliver them by smacking him upside the head."

"Ok." _Please don't be a demon's bargain, please don't be too illegal or immoral_. "But, just so you know. I don't do anything involving animals or children. Or dressing like a man. It's...a long story and I am nowhere near drunk enough to tell it."

"I have a friend, a mage named Karl from the Fereldan Circle," Anders moves closer to them, his voice dropping despite the fact that the only other people in the clinic, the man from Lirene's earlier and his recovering son, are wrapped up in their own business. "He's in the Gallows now. Until recently we've been exchanging letters. Each one he sent has been more desperate than the last, and now that they've stopped...well. I'm fearing the worst, and I can't just wait forever. I sent word for him to meet me at the Chantry tonight...if he does, I'm going to help him escape the Circle."

_Of course you are._ Conflicted once again, Wil considers it. On the one hand, she can't begrudge any mage their desire for freedom. Her entire _existence_ hinged upon a templar helping her father flee the very prison where this man, Karl, is being held. But there were risks. Not only for her and Anders, but Karl, too. He'd be hunted, and viciously. Father had always made it clear that there were few things templars hated more than a mage who thought he could beat the system. Surely _Anders_ knew that.

"Are you certain you want to make your friend an _apostate_?" Wil struggles through the word; years of Bethany strangling the label to make it fit herself and their father had turned it into something that never felt right on her tongue.

"Yes, an _apostate_" his lip curls in disdain as he spits it out. "Such a loaded word, my lady. I realize Andraste said that magic should serve man, and never rule over them. But freedom isn't mastery. I don't know of any mage that wants more than the same rights as everyone else."

_That's not what I meant._ It's subtle, but she senses Varric shifting beside her._ If only Bethany were here..._

"I agree," covering quickly. "Imprisoning mages is not the answer, but that's not a _popular_ opinion. Especially amongst the ones who hold his phylactery."

As quickly as he'd shifted from cat-induced nostalgia to anger, Anders slips into something resembling...well, he looks surprised. In a pleasant way. _And he's almost smiling so...there is _that_. Stuff it, Lirene._

"Excuse me, then. I mistook your concern for judgement," even his eyes have warmed and..._no, no Wil. You're not falling into that trap_. "I'm starting to think we might work together better than I thought. No matter, I will be at the Chantry at midnight. If you want my maps, meet me there. If everything goes well, then we can all walk away free."

_And if it doesn't go well?_ Wil refuses to press this line of thought, instead dwelling on how Anders has withdrawn himself to attend to the man and his boy without so much as a dismissal. His demeanor has once again shifted to something...detached, distant. He's doing a job he can get lost in, playing a part in which he can set aside what appears to be an abundance of _volatile_ feelings.

Varric is thinking the same thing. "It's probably a good thing that his talent is in healing. Kirkwall might be a pillar of smoke on the map of Thedas, otherwise."

"Let's go. We have an ambush to stop, and then I'll have to figure out what to do with Bethany this evening," Wil touches her forehead, a small gesture of frustration. All of her efforts to keep herself and her sister beneath the notice of the templars, and here she is planning to help a _mage_ escape from a _Chantry_. "I really wish he'd just taken the coin and left it at that."

"Oh, cheer up, Hawke. I think you'd get bored if things were ever _that_ easy."

_Easy_. She snorts and can feel a wry smile twisting at her lips.

"I'd just like some middle ground for a change," they're out of the clinic and back to drowning in sorrow and dead air. "Something in between...outright refusal and having to set myself up for an untimely end. You know? Just once."

"Good luck with that," Aveline approaches them and she at least has the good sense to not press for details. "You practically scream 'set me up for an untimely end.' Among other things. To the Wounded Coast, then?"

"Aye aye, _captain_," Wil bumps Aveline's elbow with her own, her mind latching onto annoying her friend. _Anything_ to keep it from the healer.

"You're asking for it, Hawke," Aveline is already exasperated. "Bethany, how have you put up with this your entire life?"

And then it's out of the darkness and back into the light.


	3. Better

"So what do you hope to get out of this, exactly?" Varric doesn't look up from Bianca, the crossbow is splattered in blood and nothing could be more unacceptable. The moment the last raider had fallen he'd pulled out a small leather satchel full of what looked like surgical equipment and had began cleaning the smallest grooves and mechanisms before anything could dry. "Do you want a promotion? A commendation? To be removed from the guard completely?"

His questions earn him a chill narrowing of Aveline's eyes, but Wil catches the woman tugging at one pauldron, her nerves shown with that minute gesture.

"Something wrong, Aveline?" Carefully pocketing a square silk handkerchief that had belong to someone with the initials A.T.S. before she'd killed him, Wil joins the guard, who has her back turned on the Hawke sisters' gruesome post-fight routine.

"I know we killed them, but it's still disrespectful," her green eyes are troubled as they scan the horizon, and a few loose strands of ginger hair flutter against her cheek, moved by a slight and briny breeze. "Would you do that to someone you knew?"

"If _I_ knew them, they'd probably still be alive. Unless they _betrayed_ me then, you know. Fair game. Maybe. Although...obviously _something_ is wrong. You're doing that 'I'm going to criticize you because I think I did something wrong' thing, aren't you?" Wil takes a quick step away from Aveline, just out of arm's reach. _She can still reach me with her shield_. She skitters a few more feet, just to be safe.

Aveline, however, does not respond. After a few minutes of silence, Wil rejoins Bethany at a cluster of bodies further down the path. These men are riddled with arrows, Varric's doing, and the sisters spend as much time carefully reclaiming undamaged ones as they do searching through pockets, pouches and sheaths.

"So you didn't tell me about the Grey Warden," Bethany is holding on to the fletching of an arrow that is otherwise buried in the meaty forearm of an archer. Content to ignore the question, Wil watches her try to shake the corpse free, Bethany's face twisting in frustration at how very little success she's having.

"Here," Will grabs the man's bloodied wrist with one hand, the other wrapping tight around the arrow's slender shaft. With one hard yank, and a resultant fountain of blood, it's out and thrown into a pile with the others. "And there's nothing to tell, really." While she has the man's arm, she pulls off his leather glove and is rewarded with the sight of four bare fingers and half of a thumb that looks like it was taken by some manner of beast. _Poor Ser Pounce-a-lot._ _He hated the Deep Roads._ "I think he left the Wardens because they made him get rid of his cat. But I _may_ have misinterpreted that part."

Helpful as always, Varric backs her up. "We're going to go with that, unless he tells us otherwise. At the very least, it's an interesting hook. At the most...it's incredibly embarrassing."

"The fearsome Grey Warden, pining forever for his long lost kitty?" The image _is_ amusing. She'd seen Grey Wardens at Ostagar, a few. With the exception of one of them, a handsome blond warrior who didn't appear to be that much older than Carver, they'd seemed a dire lot. For a second she tries to picture mercurial Anders sitting with them as they attended to their dinner with grim purpose. Then she adds a cat _he seems a ginger tabby sort_ and it becomes a different kind of ridiculous, but somehow sweet.

"You're smiling," hisses Bethany, voice low so Varric can't hear.

"It's _hilarious_," Wil hisses back.

"I'm just going to tell him," Aveline's assertion interrupts them and Wil is grateful for the reprieve.

"Tell _who_ _what_?"

"Jeven," she begins pacing, Wesley's shield swinging at her side. "He's the captain of the guard, he _needs_ to know that this is happening. We are his men, after all. It's the safety of Kirkwall, and the safety of the guard that I care about. Not advancement or commendation."

This brings Varric up from his task, his gaze meeting Wil's and she's forced to stifle a giggle when he directs one hazel eye towards his nose. Aveline has her serious pants on, and even _Wil_ knows to keep a straight face when Aveline is _serious_.

"I suppose you want to do that _now_, right?" Jumping to her feet, Wil gasps as a spike of pain shoots up her left leg. The injury is from a trap that had claimed her ankle near the beginning of their hike up the coast and while the large, dull teeth hadn't broken the skin, she has no doubt that she's going to wake up to swelling and a bruise the size the Gallows tomorrow. _And that's if I even get to _sleep_._

"Why? Do you have an objection?" Aveline's obviously ready to return to the barracks, her shield jaunty on her shoulder and her sword neatly sheathed at her hip.

"Yes!" Wil holds out her pack so Bethany can fill it with their meager haul, her attention remaining on Aveline. "These things have a tendency to spiral out of control, and I don't have _time_ for spiraling this evening. And neither do you."

It's not thrown like a challenge, but Aveline clearly sees it as such. The warning signs are small, a twitching muscle in her jaw, a pushing of her elbows away from her body, a miniscule shifting of her weight forward, but Wil has seen it enough times to know that it's either back down or fight it out at this point.

"You assume too much, Hawke," her tone is cool.

Handing the bag to Bethany, Wil approaches Aveline to speak in confidence.

"Beth can't go, so I need _you_," she'd told neither Bethany nor Aveline what Anders had asked her to do this evening and, knowing Aveline will not approve, she allows a bit of passion to color her plea. "It's important."

"And illegal, if you're willing to leave your sister behind." She doesn't bother to keep her voice down, and Bethany makes a frustrated noise in response.

"Of course it's illegal, Aveline," Wil nips at the end of her own tongue, the pinch from her teeth and the taste of copper a small price to pay for something resembling civility. "All pretense aside, he's an apostate who hides in the sewer and shields himself with the goodwill of refugees. Helping him do _anything_ is illegal. If you want to get _technical_, you standing here talking to me is _also_ illegal, since I'm harboring my own apostate."

"Only when you're at home." The elbows are pulling back in and the muscle stops jerking.

"Every second that I breathe," Wil corrects her, her voice rough. "You know that, Aveline."

This gets no response but Aveline turning to lead them back towards Kirkwall, a clear admission of defeat. She can't challenge Wil on Bethany, because it's a battle she will never win and a grudging source of admiration.

"Whatever you're doing tonight, I want to come," this request comes with the jangling of loot in a canvas pack. Without looking at her sister, Wil takes the pack and slips it onto her shoulder. "_Mina_."

"I'm helping a Circle mage escape." If Aveline hears this, she gives no sign. Wil continues, "And we're meeting him at the Chantry. Soo..."

"Oh." A frown creases Bethany's pale forehead. "That seems...risky."

"Those were his terms and he has maps of the Deep Roads in the area. Even if Bartrand refuses me as a partner, he wouldn't be able to say no to those." Wil hesitates before continuing. Bartrand seemed the sort who would gladly turn down such an obvious advantage just to spite her and his brother. She _knows_ that. And yet she's willing to risk what little she's managed to scrabble together here in Kirkwall to get them.

_Or maybe that's not why you're going to help him._ Bethany's turned back to Varric and is assisting in a search to find a fallen bit from his repair kit. Watching her sister kick through the sand, her cheeks pink from a clear afternoon on the beach, is a victory in itself. Fifteen years of vigilance and _sacrifice_...

"Are you guys almost finished?" Her voice is forcefully bright, although she can hear the edge of emotion. "We have more stupidly dangerous situations to get ourselves into, and it's _not_ getting any earlier."

Lower lip jutted in mild frustration, Varric folds up his kit and signals the end of their search.

"You should start recruiting with that slogan, Hawke," he snorts softly in amusement. "I can see your banner now, a knight leaping into the maw of a great dragon."

"Does the dragon's maw look like a _cave_, at least?"

"Nope. Nothing like a cave," Varric's shoulder bumps at her arm and his voice lowers to something reassuring. "But your sword _is_ drawn. If that makes you feel any better."

It does make her feel better, and she just cannot dwell on what _that_ might mean.

* * *

><p>Stone steps, there are 64 stone steps in front of him and beyond is a plaza. A darkened plaza, seemingly empty but there's that damnable Chanter's board in the way, a band of golems could hide behind that thing and no one would know.<p>

_Breathe, Anders. Breathe like he taught you, like he taught her._ He pulls in air, but not the way he's supposed to. Air shouldn't have sharp edges, air shouldn't turn his stomach sour and darken his vision from the outside in.

_The yard of the keep is bare from being subjected to the constant back and forth of soldiers, merchants, servants and Wardens. Why they have to do this here, sitting in the mud like barbarians, Anders does not know. But the Commander only smirks and settles onto the ground as instructed, her uncharacteristic obedience a deliberate attempt to upstage him in front of Justice. _

_"Watch," she commands him, as if he could ever stop._

_It takes a few minutes, the lengthening of her breaths slowing his own pulse and suddenly she's surrounded by lavender mist and indistinct, still somewhat shaped like the woman he knows but fractured within herself into bands of light and energy. _

_"It's not that easy for everyone," Kristoff's throat can barely support Justice's voice, and it's becoming more off-putting every day. "But being a mage, you should have better control."_

He tries again to breathe; his chest hitches painfully but his lungs allow this air in without additional protest and he's counting out the seconds until he can exhale, only it's someone else voicing the beats and it's too disconcerting to continue this way.

_Meditation is supposed to help_, he watches the stairs again, his eyes scanning the courtyard for any sign of templar or her.

He doesn't know her name, but her face is easy enough to conjure. Or the idea of her face, freckled tan beneath haphazard strands of mouse colored hair and a pair of eyes that burned with more than she realized, considering how otherwise flippant she'd been.

_You should not trust her._

But he will, because it's too convenient not to. That someone with a sword and a need for something that he possess- _had_ would walk into his clinic on today of all days...it was the first good fortune he'd had since a rainy morning in Amaranthine, when the yard was _all_ mud freshly churned by the king's personal guard and their fine horses. He'd always been well aware of how suddenly things could go from good to terrible, but the descent from so very tolerable to him alone and panting, surrounded by corpses that he'd called comrades not hours before, had been startling. Maybe tonight, if Karl is here...

He tries to muster some semblance of hope, but it's difficult because even his best memories of Karl come with the pale stone walls of the Circle tower as a backdrop and that everpresent chill that would sap all warmth from your bones, even from beneath layers of blankets and while pressed against a lover's chest and folded in their arms. The idea of freedom for them both, even the tenuous freedom he currently po- _enjoys_, is far too improbable.

_"Are you certain you want to make your friend an apostate?"_

Despite his initial confusion, her question had been a valid one, and one he'd struggled with himself for what seemed like five lifetimes compressed into the thirteen years he'd spent in Ferelden's Circle.

Being an apostate is better than being bound._ He remembers being fourteen and they're hauling him from a crate that was supposed to be filled with goods sent to the Wonders of Thedas in Denerim. They only need to take him up a single set of stairs to return him to the tower, but they bind him anyway. Tightly, so his hands go numb almost immediately and the ropes rub his wrists raw. _It's better than the threat of abuse._ Heavy footsteps echo outside of the apprentice quarters followed by a flash of torchlight from the hallway, and the next morning fragile Abel Applegate stops eating, wasting until Senior Enchanter Wynne orders him to the infirmary and he's never seen again._

It's better than being told that you are nothing more than a sack of flesh waiting to be filled by a demon._ He's lost track of the days since he'd gotten to two-hundred with no end in sight, but he knows when night comes because the pull is harder to resist and his dreams aren't dreams but feverish visions of the irons around his neck melting as his soul turns to flame and the templars who mock his helplessness fall before him with breathtaking ease, their very expectations of him turned against them._

_It's better,_ he's chanting this to himself when he sees them, the girl and that dwarf she'd been with earlier. She's brought another woman, this one is rangy with a bearing that speaks of long days spent training as a knight or soldier. At their heels pads a tawny mabari, his head held level with his shoulders and his dark eyes catching the moonlight.

They are an interesting assortment, and for a few seconds Anders is pulled back into a place where being part of such a group felt...right.

Now he feels like the outsider, suddenly self-conscious of where he is _what he is_ but glad, fervently glad, that she's here and seems to be taking the task seriously.

"You came," he summons her back towards the shadows where he's been waiting and tries to keep his hands still. "I haven't seen Karl, but that doesn't mean he's not inside. I've not seen any templars yet, either. Have _you_ seen any? Did you pay attention on your way up here?"

The girl goes from looking at him to _looking_ at him, her features tightening as if to say _what? are you mad?_

"Not at all," her voice is kept low, and her mouth forces itself up on the left side in something resembling a sardonic smirk. "I _want_ to be ambushed by templars. And if they catch me in the act...even _better_."

"You wouldn't joke if you knew-" he feels Justice stirring inside of him _insolence she is too insolent she cannot be trusted_ but even Justice is quelled by the way her lips press tight together and her eyes harden with cold fury.

"I didn't see anyone," she withdraws and looks towards the gaudy door that will take them into the main hall of the Chantry, her jaw clenched and her hands busying themselves by tugging on the straps of her gauntlets. "Let's get this over with."

_You _cannot_ trust her, Anders._

"Once we find Karl, let me do the talking. You just watch for templars."

She sighs. With that single exhalation goes her anger, and then her expression is one of absolute resolve.

"_That_ I can do."

* * *

><p>The inside of the Kirkwall Chantry, which Wil has managed to avoid despite Bethany's own insistence in attending the occasional service with Mother, is far more sterile than she'd expected. In Lothering, the Chantry was not a hushed sanctuary but a place for <em>people<em>. Mud from the boots of the needy and faithful marred the floorboards, their initials were carved into the wooden pews and columns and their voices echoed in the rafters. There the sisters and brothers would be waiting to talk and to listen, to offer everything they could to anyone who asked for it.

Here...the place is vast, elaborate and completely soulless. Even Wil, not the most devout Andrastian to ever walk the earth, knows what good the Chantry _can_ do but this place in Kirkwall is more like a monument to the wealthy pious than to Andraste, or the Maker, or those who needed Their grace the most.

_The statues _alone_...every single Fereldan refugee in Kirkwall could be clothed, fed and sheltered with the gold from those hideous thing._

Varric sees her staring and knows exactly what she's thinking.

"Hypocrisy in religion? Why I _never_."

Anders shoots her a look that she assumes is annoyance when she allows a quiet snort of appreciation for Varric's remark and she wants to point out that he, of all people, should understand but then he's falling back as they approach the end of the main entrance, the way opening ahead and offering all sorts of shadows and dark corners for templars to hide.

_Oh, Wil. _Always_ the meat shield._

After a moment in front of the main alter, assessing the situation on both sides of the upper level, she leads up the right hand stairs. There seems to be the flickering of torchlight beyond the balustrade while the rest of the Chantry is illuminated with nothing more than moonlight.

"That's Karl," Anders has replaced Varric at her elbow. She doesn't look at him, fearing what she'll see on his face and in his eyes. The way he'd said Karl's name was...hope and desperation and despair and she's still searching for an ambush because this has been _way_ too easy so far and nothing is _ever_ this easy.

"Karl!" Anders takes her wrist and pulls her forward toward his friend, who is admiring a wall-hanging and seems disinterested in the one that's risking so much to rescue him. "Karl, I found someone to help. Come with us and then we-"

"Anders," the voice gently interrupts, baleful and unnatural. "I knew you'd come. I knew you couldn't resist."

"_No_," Wil's arm is abandoned in Anders' disbelief and she remains where he leaves her. "Karl..._Karl_. Why are you talking like that?"

Karl turns slowly and, at first, all Wil sees is a handsome man. He's older than Anders by at least a decade, his iron-colored hair and beard immaculately maintained. _I can see why Anders would...oh, _Maker_._

From his frantic gasping, Anders sees it at the same time, the sun branded in the center of Karl's forehead. The symbol of the Chantry and the mark of tranquility.

"I had it in my mind to be free, to leave the Gallows," Karl does not react _cannot react_ to the horror that is yawning on Anders' face. "It was an unquenchable desire, a longing that distracted me and made me careless. You know what happens to careless mages. "

Anders whimpers, a strangled sound from deep within his throat and Wil is almost grateful when she hears Aveline's sword being drawn, and Varric unfolding Bianca in anticipation of battle.

"You'll understand, Anders. When you no longer need to rebel, when you no longer want something that's impossible."

Wil whips around, her hand finding the grip of her sword as she counts the black flaming swords that surrounded them.

_Four, five, six...two archers by that far door and another past the altar. Nine. Nine templars to take down one man. Pathetic._

"Anders, take Karl to safety," her blade is out and she does not want to turn her back on the encroaching templars. "We can hold them unt-"

"NO!" The voice that interrupts her is not of this world, nor is the sudden and unsettlingly sense of the air around them turning thinner, cooler.

_It smells like the sky after a rainstorm...like Sorrell's poultice._

Her eyes go back to Anders, who has collapsed. His fingers twist into his hair as if it has become unbearable to think and that's _before_ he begins to radiate tendrils of black smoke and then a brilliant blue light that cuts _out_ of him in places, but especially his eyes which now shine like stars in a tormented face as he finds his feet and stares at her with unfathomable amounts of hatred.

"YOU WILL NEVER TAKE ANOTHER MAGE THE WAY THAT YOU TOOK HIM!"

Aveline grabs her shoulder and pulls her away from the thing that was Anders before it can strike at her. For a second she is stunned and unable to process what it is she should be doing. She knows she has a sword in her hand, and she knows that the guys in the sword armor are her targets but...

_What the fuck have I gotten myself into?_ She digs her teeth into her tongue until it hurts so badly that she can't think of anything _but_ pain and then she lunges out at the nearest templar, forcing herself to stay between them and whatever Anders had become, which is now lashing out at the right people with a fearsome amount of power. She's mindful of the path of his spells, worried now about Aveline and Varric but after a few minutes it becomes clear that he's not careless with his casting. _Just terrifying in every other way._

Aveline is handling the largest of the templars, their shields _their identical shields_ clanging as they strike out at one another. Tucked into a shallow alcove, Varric systematically attacks the archers across the balcony. His size gives him an advantage that the templars don't have- namely they can't see him beyond the main skirmish and by the time they do spot him, Bianca has them in her sights.

Wil remains near Anders and _Karl_, who is cowering by the wall _how_ _is that possible? Tranquils don't feel fear_ and attracts the attention of a pair of dagger-wielding templars and _they move so fast but they're too close together, which means that I can_...she hops back, swinging her sword down to waist level while leaning forward to put all of her weight behind a strike that catches one in the ribs and knocks him over into the other so that they _both_ fall.

She's on them before they can recover, her sword turned down so that she can drive it into the first's windpipe with a single, vicious, thrust. The second attempts to stand while she's reclaiming her weapon and is consumed in ice before he can make it to his knees. Unthinkingly she looks back to nod her approval at Bethany, but it's just a stranger seething in blue light and black smoke who is already moved on to throw a single crack of lightning at the last enemy standing. The spell merely stuns its target, but Aveline takes full advantage and drives into him one last time, her shield smacking hard against his face and her sword plunging almost hilt-deep into an opening in his cuirass.

Then it's over.

Varric pulls himself out of his alcove and, after assessing Bianca, begins to gather what arrows he can while Aveline moves to stare over the bulastrade. Anyone else would assume she's on the watch for reinforcements, but Wil knows she's fighting back nausea at what's she's just done.

_"You would have me fight templars in their Chantry?"_

_"If they attack, yes."_

_"They're only doing their sworn duty!"_

_"That doesn't mean that their lives are more valuable than yours, mine or anyone else's. Mage or not_."

Although she knows she should say something to her friend, Wil decides she needs to deal with Anders first.

He's where she left him, staring at her with his normal, amber eyes that shine with mere anguish, and Karl is behind him blinking as if he's recently emerged from the worst kind of nightmare and is relieved that things aren't quite as dire as his mind had convinced him.

"Anders!" Now his voice is rough with emotion that draws Wil and Anders' attention. "It's like...you've brought the Fade here! I can...I can _feel_ again. How is that possible?"

"What _was_ that you did? Not the Fade part. The angry glowy eyes bit," Wil gives Anders what she hopes is a appropriately suspicious glare and he tenses beneath her accusation.

"It's true that I have...unique circumstances." Wil's brow goes up at that _glorious_ understatement. "But now is not the time...Karl. How did this happen?"

Karl steps forward, blue eyes full of gentle regret. _This is going to be so _emotional_ and _awkward, Wil's throat tightens but when she turns away with the intention of giving them privacy _or just getting the fuck away_, Anders' hand is on her wrist again.

"Please, stay. I don't think...this isn't...," he can't finish, but Wil and Karl both know what he's trying to say.

"You have no idea, friend, " Karl is speaking to her, words rushing to get out before meaning is stripped from him again. "The things you don't realize you see and hear and the poetry of every mundane thing that you otherwise take for granted. Music, color, even mild annoyance. It's all gone." He glances at Anders, "I would gladly give up my magic, but this is...I can't live like this. No _one_ should live like this."

"Karl, _no_," Anders withdraws two steps, his hand out in defense from...an idea? A request? "I can't."

That's when Karl turns his pleading eyes onto her.

"You came to help him free me."

_I did._ Her heart twists in her chest as she remembers the night that Father had explained to Bethany what tranquility truly meant. Beth had been thirteen, an age when every emotion is bigger than the world and the idea of _just not feeling..._

_"No love, no dreams. No hope or faith or laughter." Bethany sobs this into it the collar of Wil's tunic. "I'd care no more for you and Carver than I would for strangers!"_

_"You'd probably not really notice much with Carver," besides her neck to cry on, it's all she can offer in comfort. _

_"I'd rather be dead," this is whispered with deepest conviction. "I'd rather be dead than lose my heart. If I ever get caught...if it ever happens to me, Mina. You'd _have_ to."_

_"Bethany! You know I can't agree to that!" Wil's still young, too, and the idea of seeing someone she loves dead is __beyond her imagination. "How about we focus on making sure you never get caught?"_

_"That _would_ be better," her tears are slowing. "Just remember this though- I would rather die."_

"I've been told that it's worse than death," her voice is oddly steady. "I'm sorry, Anders, but he's right. We came here to free him."

She expects an argument, a protest. Instead Anders nods, his face a mess of emotion and all she wants to do is run away to someplace where _this is not happening_ but she watches anyway, just in case he can't make himself do it. In case his small dagger is not enough.

"Quickly, Anders," Karl begs, panic set in his features. "I'm _losing_ it, I can...Anders. Why do you look at me like that?"

He dies in an embrace, incapable even of defending himself, and Anders waits for him to go limp before he carefully lowers him to the floor. If one could ignore the bloom of blood that creeps scarlet across his robes, he looks like nothing more than a peaceful dreamer.

Anders does not linger.

"Let's go," he pushes past her, his expression suddenly unreadable. "More templars might show up at any minute and I..."

"Understood," she waves to Aveline, Varric and Bello. Following Anders, they file down the stairs and out of that ostentatious Chantry that she'll forever associate with death and hypocrisy and the loss of good and adored men to things she doesn't wholly understand.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Author's Note:<strong> Obviously, I'm taking all kinds of liberty with the dialogue__. Let me know if it's horrendous!_

_And thank you to everyone who is reading! I appreciate it._


	4. Distracting

They walk together in silence.

Aveline was left at the steps to the Viscount's Keep and she'd managed to come around enough to request Wil's presence the following afternoon.

"Jeven owes you, Hawke, and Maker knows you only did it for the gold."

Wil hadn't argued with her.

Varric split just past the Hightown marketplace, his brother's home not far from there and there were things he needed to pick up.

"Unless you want me to escort you to...what did Bethany call it? Your uncle's _foul pit of squalor_."

Wil had declined the offer.

So now it's just her and Anders, Bello snuffling along behind them. She expects, at some point during the long, circuitous walk from the Chantry to the undercity, for him to tell her that she doesn't need to do this, that he's a grown man who can take care of himself. When he doesn't, she can't help but wonder if he's intimidated by the _huge fucking sword_ she has propped on her shoulder, readied for templars.

But she can't imagine that returning it to its sheath on her back would go over that well, if only because he might misinterpret the movement of her blade as being meant for him and...no. Best to just continue in painful silence and pray for a band of idiot thugs to leap from the shadows and save her from the awkwardness that was certain to happen at some point in the near future.

_What can I even say to him at this point? Thanks, I had a fantastic time watching you become a demon and then stab your lover in the gut with a dagger. By the way, it's _so_ ok that you seemed intent on devouring me whole for a few seconds. It happens to the best of us!_

Her fingers tighten around the grip of her sword. _If you say any of that Wilhelmina Hawke, you deserve to be thrown into the deepest, darkest, most-spider infested hole in Thedas._

Unfortunately for her, they're walking Kirkwall on the one night when every jerk with a sword _except for me _has decided to stay in. It takes them almost an hour to reach his clinic and, by the time they see the glow of the lantern, she's moved on from thinking of inappropriate things she can say to him to thinking that she could really use a new _ankle_ because hers is no longer working out so well.

Door unlocked, Anders pushes through, not minding if she follows him in or not. With a silent gesture to Bello to just hang out, Wil slips through the doorway and immediately throws her sword away with a startling clatter of steel against stone.

Anders' shoulders jerk at the noise, but he keeps his back to her.

"So you're not going to kill me where I stand?" One hand goes up to run along his hair and down his neck, his long fingers curling into a loose fist that remains at his collar. "I've been waiting for the blow since we lost the dwarf."

"Do you _want_ me to?" Wil limps forward until she's next to a misshapen column that looks perfect for leaning. "Or can we both agree that we've reached our mercy killing quota for the night?"

"You joke," this comes with that whiff of ozone, but there's no black smoke or glowing.

"Oh, _all_ the time. But..._that_ wasn't a joke," she can feel the corners of her mouth turning down and there's a bright pressure behind her eyes. "I don't think I could kill you now if I _wanted_ to."

"And you _don't_?" He's turned back to look at her, his face in profile, surprise clear in his voice. "I was going to attack you before your friend pulled you away."

_Dammit_. She sinks against the column, her forehead pressed against the cool is stone oddly comforting. _An arrow to the _eye_ would be preferable to this conversation._

"You know...I was going to give you that one for free," Wil pushes herself upright again so she can talk to him like a normal person, even though she prays that this is not a conversation that happens often enough to be considered normal. "Now you've just gone and made things awkward. _More_. Awkward."

He seems uncertain how to take that, but it at least turns him around. He gestures towards an empty cot.

"I know you're hurt. I should've stopped us on the way here, but I was...lost in thought," he can't quite meet her gaze, but he sounds sincere enough and, well, a good healer is a good healer.

And if she _doesn't_ let him look it over, she might not be able to make it home.

"Fine," she hops onto the table as obediently as she can, but holds her ankle away from him. "First we have to get this over with."

"What?" The picture of frowny innocence.

"Anders. I'm not _that_ stupid. You're an abomination."

Wil hopes it comes across as...matter of fact. She hopes that he appreciates her non-judgmental tone.

She hopes that her tone is _non-judgmental_. Her sword is far out of reach and she really doesn't want to go down slap-fighting.

"That's not true," his brows pull together and now he's making eye-contact and she really wishes he wouldn't because there's just...too much of him. Like he can't always be contained by his own body and has a tendency to spill over at times. Which, if he's an _abomination_..."But...it's close."

"Quasi...abomination?" She offers him a small smile of encouragement that she's certain must look demented.

"When I was a Grey...when I lived in Amaranthine, I met a spirit of justice. He got trapped outside of the Fade by a blood mage and we became friends." _Friends_ comes out haltingly, as if he's not sure that's the best word for what they'd been. "Kristoff...the body he was..._in_...was decaying and he didn't know what would become of him. And I thought that I could help him, that he could help me."

_Please understand_, his face was begging her. But she didn't.

"Help you _what_? What could a demon-"

"A spirit," it's rain again and his eyes shimmer blue for the briefest of moments. "Spirits are the Maker's first children, and they embody our virtues. Compassion, fortitude, justice. Can you not see that those things are different from rage and desire? Justice was _not_ a demon." He's said too much. "_Is_...not a demon."

"Ok," she decides to ignore his slip and push forward. "What could a spirit offer you in exchange for...room and board?"

Anders moves away from her, only a few feet, but she can feel him go and it's...unpleasant.

"Justice understood what I'd been through. He understood I would never be able to have a normal life, just because I'd been born with magic. Even in the Wardens...I couldn't just be," he's staring into a place beyond her shoulder and his throat is working as if he might cry. "I'd hoped, but it didn't happen. And it would _never_ happen, because that's not how the world works."

"But it should," she knows this story well, but it's been at least four years since she's heard it told with such passion.

"Justice agreed, and he thought that I could do something about it and I _wanted_ to do something about it. So I let him in," he moves to her side and braces himself against the cot with both hands, his head down in shame. His hair falls forward against his shadowed jaw and it makes Wil's fingers itch to push it away."But we weren't expecting my _anger_."

_His anger._ Was that what had been pouring out of him in the Chantry? Is that what she's feeling crackling from his skin like static between layers of woolen blankets?

"I never realized how much I hated every single thing that had been done to me. I never knew how much it _burned_ that no matter what I did, no matter how many towns I saved or people I healed, that nobody would be able to see past my magic," Anders looks up at her through his hair and it's _all_ there on the surface of him. _Pain, shame, jealousy, heartache, loss._ "I just wanted to help a friend so we could work towards a world where no one has to lose their child to magic, or be imprisoned for magic. Or be abused, or _reviled_. But once he was inside me, he became...twisted. Now, when I'm confronted by the things that always angered me before, he comes out and he's no longer _Justice_, nor is he anything that I can control."

At first she doesn't respond. She _can't_ respond. All she can think about is Father, and how every evening he would gather her and Bethany and Carver up onto his bed, Mother already in her sleeping shift and sitting beneath the covers. Some nights he would tell them stories about heroic elves and clever mages and the evil that they fought, some nights he would tease their bare feet with ice and lightning, or simply let his Mina and his Beth crawl all over him while Carver jumped about the foot of the bed. It never really mattered what they did, only that they could do it and _together_.

"Your problems make mine seem small in comparison," Wil closes her eyes, disgusted at how..._self-centered_ that sounds. But it's true. She might need money to protect Bethany, and to give her mother a life worth living, but at least she's not Anders. "I'm sorry."

"I am, too," his face is drawn; he regrets telling her. Far from being offended, Wil knows she's the last person anyone should pour themselves out to. Unless there was something that could be killed, she wasn't much use.

After a moment of silence, his expression becomes purposeful but vacant as he takes her leg and begins undoing the straps of her shin-guard. As he goes down her calf, she can sense the familiar tingle of healing magic radiating into her sore muscle and merely the clear blue flare of light that accompanies it makes her smile and want to _cry_.

It's been years since she's been healed by magic and, even though Anders' spell isn't as comforting as Father's had been, it's more potent. She feels the pain easing before he has her boot off, which is shortly followed by a fierce scowl when he sees her blood-soaked stocking.

"I didn't realize it had broken the skin," with a wince, Wil rotates her knee inward so she can see where the trap had managed breach her armor. It's just a spot on her sock that's darker red-black than the rest of the ruined garment. "Stupid raiders and their _stupid_ traps."

"When did this happen?" His fingers find the top of her sock and curl beneath the upper band, knuckles pressing against the bare skin at her knee and _oh, that is...not the worst feeling in the world_. Wil shifts, a difficult task with one leg extended, and hopes that he doesn't notice how absolutely flaming her cheeks have gone.

"This afternoon. There was an ambush on the coast that we..." He's staring at her, and he has an intensely _peculiar_ look on his face.

"An ambush."

"The ambushiest," she darts her eyes away. "Aveline, the guard, asked me to help her with it and we had some time to kill this afternoon..."

"So _that's_ what you are," the sock comes off. "You're the sort of woman who'd kill time by stopping an ambush, and would walk around for half a day with a gaping _wound_ in her leg because...is it just something you're born with, or do they hand out a stunning lack of self-preservation when you get your sword?"

"Pardon me?" Wil's surprised at how _scandalized_ she sounds. "As if you didn't benefit from my stunning lack of self-preservation. Next time, I'll just beg off due to sickness."

"_Healer_." As if that took care of _everything_. "All you had to do was ask," he gently cups the heel of her foot and she feels magic once again spark up her calf, to her knee and then along the inside of her thigh. It's just the natural progression of anatomy, she _knows_ that, but _knowing_ doesn't help with the way her stomach shivers and her eyes start to _tingle_. "Let me clean you off, then I can get a bandage on this."

He withdraws to a bucket that's set up in the corner of his clinic, and Wil allows a single, strangled breath out of her throat. _Fuck_. Both thighs twitch in anticipation and she drops her head in a momentary show of defeat, forced by her own, stupid body to acknowledge a reality that she'd been avoiding all day and is certainly _not_ helped by the fact that he's back to touching her again, the damp rag darkening quickly with her blood.

_You are the worst, Wil. He just had to kill a man who was probably his lover and you're all hot because he has nice hands._ She watches as he methodically wipes at her legs, consumed with the task as if it's the most delicate of procedures until his lips quirk and he tilts his head to examine her ankle.

"It's a fox," his eyes raise to meet her own. "Or I assume it is."

"No, you're right," she's grateful for a distraction from the silence that is becoming near unbearable on her end, although the tattoo is up there with _Hey, my sister's an apostate, too!_ as a subject that she really did not wish to discuss with him. "It's not anything I would have chosen."

"Ah, a drunken tattoo." A mirthless smirk tugs the corner of his mouth.

She laughs, a short expulsion of air that's more nervous than amused.

"No, nothing so..." _foolhardy_ is the word on her tongue, but _that's_ a lie. "My brother and I were in the King's army, at Ostagar. It was a _thing_ with the other soldiers, and Carver somehow managed to convince me to get one with him. The _problem_ was that neither of us knew what we wanted, so Carver suggested we choose for each other and let it be a surprise," Wil's never told this to anyone, not even Bethany. "I picked a mabari for him. Mabaris are strong. Protective. _Growly_," this time the laugh that follows is genuine, as is the aching in her throat. "And he gave me a fox."

The poultice is going on now, and it smells even better than the concoction that Sorrell had slathered on her shoulder. She thinks to mention it, but instead focuses on his deft hands as he finishes, anything to keep from thinking about Carver, or the way she's feeling right now. _Exhausted, aroused, heartbroken and embarrassed. _

She stops him when he goes to slide her boot back on.

"I think I can handle it from here."

He doesn't argue, instead abandoning her to rinse the washcloth and use it to wipe her blood off of his hands. Through some awkward serendipity, they finish their tasks at the same time and he watches with nothing more than clinical evaluation as she hops down from the table and doesn't so much as wince when her weight comes down on her ankle.

"Good," his voice betrays an unearthly amount of weariness. "I suppose I should give you the maps before you go."

"The maps," her mind fumbles to find meaning and then it comes to her. "Oh! The _maps_. _Maker_, yes. I mean...if you feel you've been adequately compensated for them?" She has no idea what she's saying. "I have no idea what I'm saying right now."

Shrug. "It's been a long day," Anders gestures towards a writing desk that's positioned near the center of the clinic. It's obviously been reclaimed, or possibly offered in exchange for healing. The surface is scarred, the legs heavily water damaged and Wil sees mildew edging the slightly warped storage drawer. "They're the only things in there right now. Take them all if you think you need them. I...can I ask you something?"

_Can I ask you something?_ is a question she hates, because _something_ in these situations is almost always unpleasant, or personal. Otherwise, they'd just be questions _asked_ and not _proposed_.

But he has eyes that are sad and a bit pleading right now and he _did_ just perform something like a miracle on her leg, so she nods and hopes she doesn't look too annoyed.

"Why a fox?"

"_That's_ what you wanted to ask me?" Her brow raises. "Really?"

With a slight frown, "What I want to ask is why you were willing to help me, and what it is you hope to find in the Deep Roads. But I don't think those are questions you're willing to answer. At least not honestly."

"Well, you've got me _there_," she forces joviality out but it stalls before she can actually answer his question. She's seeing Carver in his worn splintmail, arms across his chest in perpetual defiance of everything she did, said and was. _Even though it was who _he_ was, too. _"I asked him the same thing when I saw it. I'm not sly or sneaky, you know? And he just looked at me and said 'It's a _fox_, Wil, because you think you're so damned clever'."

He stares.

"And that's pretty much all you need to know about me," she goes to the desk, her back turning on him the greatest relief of the evening because she can safely use the heel of her hand to press against the swell of tears that threaten to burn out her eyes. After a quick search, she has the maps in her hand and then her sword is returned to its proper place and she can leave and probably never come back because _oof_. _So many perfectly valid reasons, including..._

"I understand if this is the end of our...association," despite the wavering of his voice, his word choice makes their agreement and the tragic Chantry bloodbath that ensued sound like the most mundane of business transactions. "I wouldn't expect anyone to risk their safety to have me as a traveling companion. But if you need me, now or when you go on your expedition, I'll be here."

_Take me or leave me._ His gaze challenges her, and it's a physical thing that holds her rooted to the spot for far too long, thinking of all the ways that _I'll be here_ is a trap.

"I'll keep that in mind. If I don't...thank you for the maps," she's made it to the doorway to the clinic, Bello taking his place at her side, and it's two steps to freedom but she can _not_ keep her mouth shut. "I hope your life gets better. I mean, it has to, right?"

_To the spider-hole with you, Wilhelmina._

"One can...hope," creases appear near the top of his nose and then smooth out again as if he realizes that it's late and she's not going to get any less horrible. "Don't forget that we may have been followed. Be on your guard for templars, Wil."

_I always am._ And then she walks as fast as she can away from that clinic, and its Grey Warden apostate with his nice hands, dead lover and way of saying her name like it, and she, belongs to him.

* * *

><p>It's not quite dawn when she finds herself creeping through Lowtown, but there are a few workers walking the alleys on their way to the docks, the market, the foundry. Some she recognizes, although it's been weeks since she's been out this late and nearly a month since she's wandered so close to the alienage.<p>

As far as she can tell, she's not being followed. There's probably no real reason why she couldn't double back to the slums and let herself into Gamlen's house, to crawl into bed and fake like she'd been there for most of the night, and not out getting into fights at the Chantry.

But there's _always_ that slim chance, so she's urging herself towards a particular door, a wooden one with green paint that is forever peeling and chipping onto the stone steps beneath it. It swings open at her touch and she slips into a long, narrow room that is populated by one weary barkeep and a trio of truly devoted elven drunks who eye her with suspicion but make no comment on her presence. Elves, even drunken ones, respect a well-armed human.

There's a staircase near the back of the tavern, steep and poorly lit even during the day. At night it's nearly impossible to see in front of her but she's prepared, counting twelve steps from bottom to top and then inching down a hallway that's barely any wider than her shoulders. One hand finds her pocket and the iron key inside that is surprisingly warm against her palm. The other stretches out to run along the rough wooden wall, her fingertips feeling for the third door on the right and then carefully navigating their way around the rusting lock.

_Be careful to not turn the key too hard or too quickly, lest you snap something in the mechanism or make too much noise_. It's a struggle in the dark, and she's becoming uncomfortably aware of the scrapes, bangs and muffled moans that fill the air around her like an uncomfortably sensual fog. Relief floods her when the key finally clicks into place and she lets herself into a room that is illuminated only by a shaft of moonlight filtered through a single, warped skylight.

It's faint, but enough to help her be mindful of the layout of the space, the three crates on the right that serve as a table and chairs, a worn dresser pushed against the far wall and a single, occupied, bed.

There's a chill in the air and, the moment her smallclothes have fallen to the floor, she slides in besides Sorrell, who has been waiting for her in ready silence.

"It's been awhile," his voice is warm with sleep and it rumbles out of his thin chest and into hers.

"Three weeks and four days." And yet they arrange themselves to each other as if they'd not missed a single moment, their stomachs and hips pressed close and her upper leg thrown across his waist. "I couldn't go home tonight; there's a chance I was being followed."

If he's offended, it's lost in the press of his mouth against her own, his lips dry but soft, and the way his fingers feel curling into her short hair. For several long moments, as desire that isn't quite for him is both vented and reborn and they ready themselves for something that will be enjoyable but not particularly memorable, Wil abandons the day with startling ease.

"Hawke," he pulls away and his breath is hot on her neck. "Where did we leave off?"

"I think you were going to tell me how you got that scar," she finds his face and traces the line that runs along his cheekbone and deep into his hair. "But I don't think I can stomach a sad story. Not tonight."

_Not another._

He's understanding to a fault.

"I can...make up a happy one. If you want," this is a whisper, and it comes with a gentle nipping at her throat, the brush of his lips turning her liquid. "Or _you_ could make up a happy one and tell it to _me_."

"It shouldn't surprise you, but I can't tell a happy story to save my life. Silly, maybe, but usually violent and woe-filled, too," her mouth is positioned near his ear and she darts her tongue out to run along the delicately tapering cartilage, enjoying the way it moves him closer, his hand sliding down her back so that his fingers can sink into her bottom. "Or we can forget the stories and just..." she licks one more time, deliberately, and his response is immediate and _immensely_ distracting.

Which is _exactly_ what she was hoping for when she came here.


	5. Here

The square in front of Gamlen's tenement is littered, as it always is when the weather is warm, with the unemployed residents of the slums in the area. Most of the apartments in this part of Kirkwall are windowless or poorly ventilated. While the square is hardly pleasant, the sun beating off of the bleached-white stone with unrelenting intensity, there's an occasional breeze and pools of shade cast by awnings and sheets that have been hung between buildings for just this purpose.

It's rare that Bethany makes conversation _or _eye_ contact _with these people, nor do they go out of their way to acknowledge her. She doesn't know if it's something they can sense in her, her magic, or Mina's tendency to stroll through at all hours of the day with her big, bloody sword that earns them such a wide berth, but she knows she shouldn't complain. The less people know about them the better. They have Gamlen's mouth working against them already and this is, hopefully, a temporary situation.

Still, she shouldn't be out today. The only thing that keeps her is Aveline pacing in front of where Bethany is seated on the steps that lead up to Gamlen's tenement. Even in her off duty uniform of a sleeveless tunic and leather trousers, Aveline cuts an intimidating figure, and Bethany is immensely grateful for her protection _and_ her company today. Gamlen had stumbled in shortly after dawn, reeking strongly of perfumed vomit and a sight surlier than normal. He'd been looking to start something and it wasn't long before Mother gave in to the fight, which only encouraged Gamlen to say things that Bethany did _not_ need to hear.

_"It's not my fault your damned husband couldn't keep a job, or stay alive well enough to see his family taken care of."_

_"Don't say such things about Mal! He was a good man-"_

_"Between the sheets, maybe. A good man wouldn't make the woman he loved lower herself so far to be with him, or taint her children with _magic_."_

"It is _after_ noon," Aveline has ceased her striding and plants herself just in front of Bethany, arms crossed and brows knit in frustration. "I don't care. I'm going to that clinic right now, and I'm wringing his scrawny neck."

"You would do that for _me_?" Mina stumbles by Aveline, her sword unsheathed, and then collapses onto the step next to Bethany. "I'm flattered, but it's really _not_ necessary. You'd only be depriving Kirkwall of its best healer, and for no reason."

"Fine, Hawke. Have it your way, "Aveline leans forward so she's eye-to-eye with Mina, her voice low and serious. "Then give me _your_ neck."

For a second, Bethany is afraid that she might have to shoot one of them with ice to break the big-strong-girls-with-feelings face-off they have going, but her sister finally looks away, a smirk twisting her lips.

"Don't let it get out, Beth, but I think that Aveline was concerned about me."

"We both were!" Head shaking in disbelief at Mina's insistence on being so flippant _all the time_, Bethany gets on her feet to take Aveline's side. "And after what happened at the Chantry..."

Bethany can hardly deal with possibility of being made tranquil, and Maker knows how she feels about _templars_, but she doesn't like that so many died and if someone could tie that back to _Mina_...she doesn't want her sister to be hunted by the Chantry, too. _And she would never go gracefully_, grudging admiration swells in her stomach. _They'd tranquil her just to get her to shut up._

"I couldn't come back here," Mina's smirk fades; she's telling the truth. "We might have been followed, and I wasn't going to risk leading anyone to you or Mother." Eyes falling shut, exhaustion is clear across every inch of her face even as she jokes, "Gamlen, though, they can _have_."

"You have no idea," a placated Bethany returns to her place on the stairs, her hands folded neatly in her lap while Aveline works up to share her own news.

"I talked to Jeven this morning, Hawke," Aveline takes up pacing again, only now she's punching her left palm in a rhythm that's not quite there.

"And?" Mina leans back, her legs stretching out to cross at the ankle; Bethany sees the gouge in her boot and remembers the trap from yesterday. _Has she even thought to take care of it?_

"He called me Ferelden," anger clouds her voice.

"You _are _Fereldan, Aveline. Unless you thought you were keeping that a secret?"

"Like it was my _name_. I've done everything I can for this city, and all he sees is where I'm from. He wasn't even concerned about the ambush and he's forbidden me from working outside of my assignments," she stops and turns on the Hawke sisters, resolve glittering in her dark eyes. "I don't care. Brennan, the guard whose patrol we cleared, told me that there was something suspicious about the message bag he was having her run that night. She said it was heavier than normal."

"_Heavy_…" Mina tilts her gaze towards Bethany and then shrugs. "With coin? With stolen goods? With the hopes and dreams of everyone in Kirkwall? No, _that_ wouldn't be heavy."

"This is serious," scratching at a small insect bite on the back of her arm, Aveline drops her voice. "The bag has already been passed to another guard. Donnic. He's a good man and doesn't deserve to be used like this. I'm _not_ going to sit on my hands because Jeven told me to."

Mina sighs, her head going back in a faux-dramatic fashion.

"And yes, I want your help. As a friend," Aveline smiles, a grim tightening of her lips. "I'll even let you laugh at me if this turns out to be nothing more than legitimate guard business and I lose my position."

"You'll lose more than your position," Bethany squints; the sun glaring off of the stone around them makes her head ache. "Where will you _stay_?"

"With us, of course," Mina speaks without hesitation and seems almost sincere. Then, "Maybe Gamlen will finally stop wasting so much money at the Blooming Rose."

"Ignoring that last part…thanks, Hawke. It means a lot that you would offer, although I hope it doesn't come to that. I've just got the worst feeling about this, is all." Thoughtful again, Aveline leans against the stairwell wall. "Donnic's patrol is the docks. If Varric wants to come along…we could all meet up at the Hanged Man. Maybe that way if I get cold feet, you can get me drunk enough to remember why I put myself through this."

"As if you could _ever_ forget why you put yourself through this," Mina's tone is teasing and even Aveline chuckles.

"You're right. I couldn't," she straightens and stretches her shoulders back. "I should probably go, then. I have my own patrol this afternoon and now that I know you're not in some mineshaft somewhere…you _do_ know that you could always stay with me."

This wrinkles Mina's nose. "You mean in the _barracks_? I don't think I'd be terribly comfortable there." Her voice goes flirtatious, "Besides….people will _talk_. It would be _scan_dalous."

"Eh. People already talk," it's dismissed with the wave of one freckled hand. "No matter. Stay safe until tonight. No more running off to Maker knows where."

Bethany waits until Aveline is out of earshot before she even thinks about opening her mouth.

"I imagine that I'm to stay cloistered here for at least a week," she keeps her focus on her knees.

"Hopefully not _that_ long," Mina mimics her posture, and Bethany can feel sympathy radiating from her sister. "But the Chantry is smart enough to realize that it wasn't _just_ a mage that killed all those templars...and they'll probably have them canvas all of Kirkwall to find the ones who did."

For several seconds, they sit in contemplative silence. Mina is exhausted, and Bethany knows her sister won't even attempt to rest before she heads out for the tavern. Guilt nibbles at the back of her mind. _She's doing this more for me than herself…If I wasn't so vulnerable, and if we both weren't so afraid of what might happen to me…_

"Aveline told me about last night. Some of it, anyway," Bethany speaks quietly. "You did the right thing. For that mage."

Mina snorts, clearly unhappy with the way things turned out.

"Did I? I…all I could think about was what you would want me to do, and he was begging me, too," there's a quiver in _begging_; Bethany touches her sister's hand for reassurance. "Still, it didn't feel right, making Anders kill him. They'd probably been lovers at some point, and to have to see someone you care about like _that_, and then stab them? I don't think I could."

"You could, Mina. You'd not want anyone to suffer like that, and _especially_ if you loved them." Bethany allows a pause that's more for propriety than anything else before she continues, "And are you sure they were lovers? Good thing you shot down that bet of ours."

This reminder makes Mina uncomfortable.

"That was the impression I got, at least. Besides, his being into men is probably the _least_ of the reasons why marrying him _ever_ would be a terrible idea. But I'm not ready to talk about it. I need at least twenty hours of good sleep and a few pints of ale before _that_ happens."

"So I'll know within the hour," Bethany doesn't push further, as her mind is already making its way down a path that it probably shouldn't. "So was this tranquil mage…cute?"

"_What?_" Even with her eyes widening in shock, Mina is obviously amused at her sister's question. "Bethany, really. This is _me_ levels of insensitivity. He _just_ died."

"I know!" Her face is violently warm now, both from the thoughts that _will not go away_ and the wrongness of them. "Ugh. This is your fault, you know. If you hadn't found those stupid books…"

"_The Monastery Men?_"Mina'sbrows shoot up. "You _read_ them, didn't you? Ooh_ dirty_, Beth."

Bethany's face is now buried in her hands. "Not _all_ of them," she manages to squeak out. "They started getting…repetitive."

_I am going to die now. Don't mind me._

"They did, didn't they? I kept longing for one of the recruits to get stripped down in the heat of passion only to discover _surprise_! It's Sister Purity disguised as one of the boys! Besides, I don't think mages would be half as alluring, even in the flesh. At least templars are…athletic," Mina elbows Bethany back into existence. "Too bad we couldn't save them, they might have fetched some coin. Or been good for some laughs. Now they're probably in some ogre's belly."

"_Oh_," Bethany remembers, and it makes her giddy and sick at the same time.

"Oh, _what_?"

"Well, after you and Carver left for Ostagar, Mother went a little mad with the cleaning and-"

"Fuck _me_. She found them, didn't she?" Mina's face twists in morbid delight. "That's thoroughly _mortifying_."

"It's worse."

"_Worse?_ What…you caught _her_ reading them?"

"_Andraste_, no! I might have hid them under Carver's bed and…forgot. Then one morning I walked by his room, the box was open and Mother looked…well, like she had just discovered something about her son that she _really _wished she hadn't," Bethany presses the heel of her hand to her mouth to stifle an onset of the giggles even as she blinks back tears. "At least, not like _that_."

This sends Mina into gales of laughter and soon Bethany gives in to join her. People are staring, but it's a moment that doesn't want to end because both of them are imagining their brother's mortification as if he's there in front of them, scowling down with thunder in his dark eyes because _you girls are…a punishment, I don't even know what _for_ anymore. Why couldn't I have normal sisters…or brothers? I'd take weird brothers over the two of you any day._

"If Mother only knew about _Peaches_," gasps out Bethany, thinking of the orange haired girl and how desperately and awkwardly Carver had worked to secure her affections.

"Maybe Mother _did_ know, and assumed that's why he was reading books about naughty templars!" Mina collapses against her and, even though their merriment is subsiding, they both want to hold on just a bit longer. "Remind me to tell you about the fox, later. After all my sleep and booze."

"All right," Beth's eyes are streaming with tears so that her fingers come away with black kohl smeared across them. "Oh. _This_ will be the high point of my day."

Mina's on her feet, her sword returned to its sheath and she offers Bethany a hand up.

"Sounds ominous. What's mother got us doing now?"

Rolling her eyes, Bethany gestures towards her outfit- an ill-fitting tunic over a long, rust-colored skirt with a series of patches near the waist.

"_Laundry_? I feel like we _just did_ laundry," Mina hops up a few steps, and then her face brightens in a wicked grin that makes her eyes sparkle. "Last one home has to do Gamlen's smalls!"

And then she's up the stairs, her long legs giving her an advantage over Bethany, who first gets caught up in her skirt and _then_ has to contend with the building door, which her sister had pulled tight behind her. By the time she does catch up, Mina is already up the crooked stairs and on their floor, but waiting just outside of the apartment.

Voices, angry ones, ring out from the Amell-Hawke abode and it does everything to kill the girls' mood.

"I say we _hide_ his smalls," Mina presses her palm flat against the door, indignation flickering across her features. "Or maybe tie them to his head so he can suffer as much as Mother does for a few days."

Bethany has to agree, but all of this makes _her_ feel slightly better.

"This is why we _have_ to make enough money for that expedition, Mina. Not just for our safety, but so Mother can have a chance to remember what life was like…before. When you tell me about the Grey Warden, and the fox, I have something I need to discuss. But not now."

Automatically, their shoulders bump in solidarity and they enter the wretched apartment together, breath held against the fresh stench of their whiskey-soaked uncle and poverty that wasn't as dire as it had been in Lothering, but nonetheless felt worse because it was _here_.

* * *

><p>The first one comes in with a fever caused by an infected bite on her stomach. Festering skin clings to the dirty wool of her dress as he pulls the garment away for closer examination. The stench is overwhelming, but Anders has nothing in his stomach to retch and it turns out to be fairly standard, as far as these things go, and before she leaves she offers filth encrusted coppers that he cannot accept.<p>

And then she offers herself and he _definitely_ cannot accept.

The child has obviously been beat, bruises in every state imaginable shadowing his arms, chest and face. Justice presses inside his skull, roaring his disapproval, but the father is at least keeping the kid fed, which puts him in better overall health than most of Anders' patients. All he can do is handle the young boy as gently as possible and heal him the best that he can. He even offers a smile and receives one, tentative, in return.

It feels like profound failure.

The teenage girl who came in last week had cried when he'd that confirmed she was expecting a child. Her hair was greasy yellow and it hung in dirty strands against hollow, down-covered cheeks. He'd been helpless with her because she was _starving_and a starving body shouldn't be able to get pregnant. But there she was, damned, and his only advice a useless "try to find food," as if she couldn't have figured _that_ out on her own, and before she'd been reduced to bones.

She's back again, unsteady on her feet and bleeding out life that is completely gone within an hour of her arrival. Before he can even think about arranging for the removal of her body, a man stumbles in, his hands pressed against his head and crimson running down his knuckles and wrists. After far too much coaxing, Anders is able to get the hands to come away and then he's trying to figure out how to keep this poor man's brain inside his skull and he forgets all about the girl until hours later, when the head wound is gone with stitches and the volunteers that Lirene sent him for the day have excused themselves for dinner.

Except the idea of moving her is...beyond him. Everything in him is depleted. His energy. His mana. His ability to pretend like this place isn't devouring him from the inside out.

Some days he can handle the unceasing parade of humanity at their lowest and most broken. Occasionally, he even thinks he's making a _difference_.

Then there are todays, when he can't even comprehend why this world, and especially this _shithole city_, is even allowed to _be_ because it's all just a bunch of misery and injustice and...

"Is there something you normally do with them?"

He whips around from his washing basin and sees Wil standing next to the woman's corpse, her face blank but her eyes are green fire. _How does this happen to a person,_they ask as she takes in the oversized joints and painfully distended abdomen. _Who would be so cruel to allow such a thing?_

"There's a...pit not far from here. If no family claims them, they get taken there and burned."

"A pit," she echoes dimly, her fingers going up to push a loose strand of hair that had fallen across her nose. "You just described most of the undercity. I'd hate to accidentally dump her on an unsuspecting family of refugees."

His forehead constricts in surprise.

_Be careful with this one._

"You mean...oh," Anders goes to wipe his hands on the cloth he keeps around his neck during the day and realizes too late that it's already grimy with all manners of bodily fluids. _Gross_.

He tugs it off, his nose wrinkling in distaste and he has to wash his hands again, this time doing a more thorough job as he tries to work out the how and why of _her_.

If nothing else, he'd rather gotten the impression that she had no intention of ever coming back to this place. Maybe. Certainly, he'd not expected to see her again so soon. He scrubs harder at his knuckles, the last bit of maroon coming off in water that was hardly any cleaner than the bib he'd just discarded. Still, it looks better and..._do I _care_ that it looks better?_

Behind him is the sound of armor rubbing together and he realizes that she probably did _not_ come down to watch him piddle around his clinic.

"It's not too far, but you're right," he dries his hands on a clean towel, finds an old blanket, and then approaches the body. "Even my directions would be confusing if you're not intimately familiar with Darktown. If you can...carry her, I'll lead the way."

Wil nods and, together, they cover the body and then he watches as she carefully scoops it from the table to cradle against her chest like a parent holding a sleeping child. Her posture does not waver on the five minute trek to their destination and, unlike most of his volunteers, she refuses to simply pitch the body from the wall above, but carefully navigates down a steep incline so it can be laid out atop the pile of cold ash and bone fragments.

"You didn't have to do that," he accepts the blanket that she salvaged and folds it automatically against his stomach. "I appreciate it, though."

She merely shrugs in response and he lets her guide them back to the clinic. Darktown makes her visibly uncomfortable; she shrinks away from every surface and the muscle in her jaw tightens whenever they encounter a pair of elven beggars who reach for her with skeletal fingers and then watch her pass with pale and baleful eyes. Only when they're safely beyond his doorway does she allow her guard down.

"I brought you dinner," she gestures to a canvas pack that he hadn't noticed was on his desk. "It's not much at all, but something tells me _not much_ is pretty standard for you."

"You brought me dinner?" That's somehow more surprising than her appearing from nothingness to help dispose of a body. "Why?"

For a few seconds she doesn't respond, choosing to stare instead at the reliefs carved high into the wall at the back of his clinic. Slaves, naked all, and faces raised in agony at an unforgiving stone grey nothingness. Few noticed them, but all who did remarked upon their grimness. Wil, however, just contemplates and then fixes him with an inscrutable gaze.

"Who knows why I do anything?" Her throat jerks in silence and he catches a glimpse of a bruise just off from her windpipe and stares for far too long before he realizes it's a bite mark. _And one that hadn't been there when she left this morning_."It's probably because I'm an ass and being randomly thoughtful is the only reason _anyone _puts up with me."

She tosses the pack to him and he digs in without hesitation; he can't remember the last time he'd eaten and whatever she's brought smells _fantastic_.

And it _is_ pretty damned good. Freshly baked bread, goat cheese and a firm, red apple that he bites into with relish. He's been living off of what Lirene sends down, the dregs that not even the starving refugees want. Hardtack, dried mackerel and lichen porridge have been his mainstays since he'd opened his clinic and he's almost embarrassed at how desperately he devours the fruit in his hand. _Almost_ because it's all _so_ delicious and just the snap of his teeth through the flesh of it is a pleasure that he'd long forgotten.

_Distraction._

Wil watches with what appears to be warm bemusement, as if the sight of him going crazy for an apple is in some way touching. Instead of making him self-conscious, he relaxes against one of his tables and then pulls out the rest of the food and arranges it on top of her pack.

"So I assume you already ate," he's finished as much of the apple as he can, and the nearly bare core gets tossed aside for a rat to claim.

"I did. And even if I hadn't, I wouldn't dare get in between you and your dinner," when she _really_ smiles, her cheeks curve up to slightly eclipse her eyes. "No offense, but I need my hands."

"I imagine hands _are_ useful in you line of work," he breaks off a piece of bread, and then gestures towards her sword. "That's how you've avoided ending up down here with your fellow Fereldans."

For a second, the same discomfort _or is it guilt_ that he saw when they were walking back from the pit darkens her features. Then she grimaces.

"Actually, and this hurts me to say, my uncle has been kind enough to let us stay with him in Lowtown. It involved a year spent in indentured servitude, but let's pretend that it put…character on my chest, or something. Now _that_ debt's been paid and I'm hoping to fall into something that's a bit more lucrative and a lot less…like servitude."

"I can't blame you," he speaks around a mouthful of bread and cheese, the taste not quite as vibrant as the apple but the textures comforting. It's a nice distraction from what she just said, the word _servitude_ not amongst Justice's favorite, nor his own. It reminds him of the Circle, of the women who come to his clinic, raped and beaten by those who held their contracts. Wil had made out better than most, it seemed, but it still didn't make it _right_.

"Are you busy this evening?" The question comes from nowhere, but he should be used to that by now. She's proving to be a "from nowhere" type of person. "That ambush I told you about this morning? There might be another tonight, by the docks. I was going to meet Varric and Aveline at the Hanged Man in a few hours. If you want…you could come with us."

He's barely able to process what she's saying when the food in his mouth goes ashen and suddenly he's not quite in control of the words that spill across his tongue

"HE IS NOT YOURS TO MANIPULATE"

nor can he stop his hand when it decides to fling the remnants of his dinner past her head

"WE ARE NOT FOR HIRE"

and he's walking towards her, _stalking_ towards her, _stop it STOP IT she's not done anything wrong _and only _inches_ away he catches himself, his hands his own again and pushing into _his_ hair as _his_ feet stagger him back and away and there is no _away_ far enough because _Maker_ she hadn't even flinched and now she's watching him struggle to reclaim his body and his-

_She cannot be trusted._

"You should go," he gasps it out, fingers seizing onto the edge of the table he'd been using for supper. "Before I hurt you. _Please_ go."

"Our brother died when we were trying to escape Lothering," her tone is conversational, as if he hadn't_ just_ fought back the angry spirit inside of him. "I thought that you might not want to be alone all the time, especially after what happened last night. I'm not the best company, and Aveline will probably glare at you a lot and _Varric_ will call you...Glowy or something else you hate, but between the three of us we might be able to equal one person who you could…I don't know. Not be alone with?"

_You're never alone. There is always work to be done. There is-_

He doesn't know what to make of this, his breath tearing his throat apart, his heart breaking against his ribs and she could be lying to cover the fact that Justice had called it right when he said she was manipulating Anders, but Anders _wants_ to believe her. After...Karl and another day of blood, puss, starvation, abuse and death he _needed_ to think that there was _something_ here that might be worthwhile.

_You _have_ something that's worthwhile._

"The Hanged Man is near Lirene's right?" He pushes himself upright and Justice's voice as far back as he can. "I can't promise anything. Not anymore. But I'll try."

"If you do show, I'll buy you dinner. Maker only knows what they put in their stew, but it _has_ to taste better than what's become of yours," she gestures back towards the spot on the ground where his meal had landed and grimaces. "Floor cheese is _not_ the best cheese."

She then approaches him with long strides and when she's close enough to take what she came for, her canvas pack that had somehow managed to make it out of Justice's tantrum unscathed, she's _close_ and he realizes that she's very nearly as tall as he is and her eyes are lovely- bright and not afraid. That morning she'd been panicky and now..._how is she _not_ afraid?_ He watches her leave, strength abandoning him with every step she takes _away_ until he's slid to the ground, his ass on the gritty stone floor and his knees trapped against his chest.

_You're _never_ alone._

But he was, in all the ways that had ever mattered to him before. And now…it might not _have_ to be that way.

_She _cannot_ be trusted._

"Shut _up_," it comes out desperately strangled and Justice withdraws on his own this time.

_It will be _your_ mistake._

"Aren't they all?"

* * *

><p><strong>Note from Surely:<strong> I'd like to thank everyone who is reading! If I haven't been responding to reviews, it's because of this sites infuriating instability since last week. Just know that I appreciate every word of feedback I receive!


	6. What I Do

"Tell me, Hawke, what did you _do_?" Varric's feet are on his table, and he's swirling wine in a golden goblet that his lips will never touch. Beyond his rooms is the dark and slovenly chaos of every low-rent tavern, but he manages to make any space he's in seem like it's been lifted directly from one of the stories he so loves.

_Even the ambiance here is perfect_. _Dark, but not romantic. Familiar, but not boring._ Wil settles back into her chair and sniffs the swill she's been served in a wooden mug that might have been carved by a blind goat.

"Let's see...I went up to the Keep to remind Aveline that she owes me for that cushy new job of hers and-"

"That's not what I meant," he cuts her off with smooth precision, his feet coming down so that he can lean forward. There's nothing malicious in his expression, in anything he does _ever_, but Wil's been uncertain what he wants from her for a week and she can't help but be slightly suspicious _now_. "Before you came to Kirkwall. In Ferelden. You had a life before you landed on our shores. Didn't you?"

"Not at all! Bethany just happened to be out on deck of the ship they took from Gwaren. She spotted me floating in the Waking Sea, clinging to a plank of wood with two mermen and a winged Qunari," the swill goes down as badly as this lie. "The mermen were decent company, but the _Qunari_."

Eyes widen as if to say _Don't get me started on _that_ guy_.

"See, I heard that _mermen_ are the worst. Always whining about the seashells chafing their nipples and how hard it is to wash seaweed out of their hair."

"Huh. Well, these mermen were perfect gentlemen," Wil holds out one hand, palm up, and Varric obliges by carefully balancing his goblet on it. "They didn't last very long once we started smuggling...hard for them to get around on dry land, you know, but always _so_ polite."

Silence ensues between them, although the scrape and din of the Hanged Man beyond his open door keeps it from being awkward. In a bar there's _always_ something worth overhearing, granted you have low enough standards- drunken philosophizing, shady dealings, sloppy advances and the whispered allusions to the lives being forgotten in the steady stream of alcohol.

Varric waits her out, allowing her to decide what she'll tell him and what she'll keep for herself...for now at least.

"I was whoever or whatever my family needed to be," the wine is of much higher quality than the whiskey, the flavor bright on her tongue. "When my father got work as a tutor, I cleaned house. When we lived closer to the woods, I taught myself to use a bow. Poorly, as you can imagine, but against an unarmed opponent I always emerged the victor. Um..._almost_ always."

"I thought I saw you giving Bianca the eye!" Varric throws a protective hand across his crossbow and leans close to whisper, "Don't worry, baby. I'll never let her befoul you with her subpar marksmanship."

"I would tell you to find someplace private...but we're already in your apartment. Should I leave for a bit?"

With a laugh that admits he's heard that joke more than a few times, Varric waves for her to continue.

"Speak on, my lady, so that I might have the _from nothing_ with which to begin the tale of you."

"Oh, no. The Gallows is my _nothing_," her head shakes vehemently. "This is for you alone, Tethras. And it's not even interesting-"

"What's not even interesting?" Anders is framed in the doorway to Varric's rooms and it's obvious the weather in Kirkwall has taken a recent turn towards the incredibly wet. _Either that or he swam to Lowtown._ The already bedraggled feathers on his pauldrons are now dark, sodden clumps and his hair is curled against the edge of his collar. He seems mostly oblivious, though, as he takes a seat besides Wil and accepts the cheese plate she offers without prompting.

"Hawke's life story, apparently," Varric observes her for one moment, his expression difficult to read. "You'd think someone who'd palled around with mermen would be exciting...but you'd be wrong."

"You told him?" Anders' brows are high on his pale forehead and there's an oddly mischievous gleam in his amber eyes. "And what did the dwarf make of Flapsy and Cardwin? You _did_ tell him about the stolen mule, didn't you?"

"So that horrible lie wasn't even off the top of your head. Huh," Varric snorts his disappointment.

"Not all of us our born with a gift for subterfuge, Varric," Wil throws her friend a crooked smirk. "I make up for it with my charm and quick wit. And if for _some_ reason _those_ fail..._stab_."

"Why don't you tell Blondie here all about your _quick wit_ while I go see about food," he pauses on his way out and fixes her with a smile. "_Lucky._"

Anders watches the dwarf leave and then turns back to Wil, expectant. She can't help but give in.

"So...imagine you've just walked into a bar and, out of the corner of your eye, you see this...buxom brunette creature. She's _gorgeous_, white clad with _acres_ of exposed, tan flesh," Wil tilts her head in amusement as the corner of Anders' mouth pulls back in a minute show of interest. "Now let's say that, before you can approach, she gets into it with a group of men. They harass her, she harasses back, and then they fight."

"It _seems_ inevitable."

"Sadly, yes. But, happy ending, it turns out that she has a few tricks up her..." Wil is trying to remember if there was any place on the lovely captain to hide _anything_ that wouldn't be a hazard to her heart and then she remembers those fantastic "_boots_. Or should I say down instead of up? Anyway, she gets the last man at the end of her dagger, her blade a hair's breadth from his throat," Wil demonstrates by brandishing her finger at Anders and then leaning forward so that she's _almost_ touching him but not quite. "And then she says 'Tell me, _Lucky_. Is this really worth dying for?'"

Anders is staring intently along her outstretched arm and, for a few seconds, Wil loses track of what comes next in this pointless little story because she's thinking about how he'd been the night she took him dinner, for those few minutes when he wasn't...lost. Despite the exhaustion that's etched itself into his sharp features, and despite the shadowed torment of his eyes, there are moments when something flits to the surface that's almost playful.

_That's probably the core of the man he was before, trapped inside and longing to get out._ Wil startles at her own morbidity and forces her mind away before it can delve any deeper.

"Should I guess what you did next?" Anders reaches for the cheese plate and Wil sinks back into her chair. "I bet it involves you saying something."

"It does," Varric is back, and bearing another bottle of wine, which he hands off to Wil with a warning. "You might want to save that for Aveline's celebration. It's the best this place is likely to get for a few weeks, and that woman is surprisingly picky about her spirits."

"True," the wine goes onto the bookshelf directly behind her before she continues. "So...where was I?"

"Let me tell him, Hawke" Varric has been amused about this all evening. "You won't do it justice."

Wil nods her consent and the dwarf clears his throat and begins speaking in low, exaggerated tones:

"As quickly as they appeared, the blades vanish into their secret places on our damsel. She returns to her spot at the bar and the tavern resumes its course around the interruption, as it always does." He throws one finger into the air for dramatic effect. "_Hawke_, though, sees an opening. This stranger is a capable woman, alone and searching for answers...being searched for in return...so Hawke decides to take her chances. The opportunity for a little booty is _not_ something our friend can pass up, after all."

"That's me!" Wil wishes she had opened the wine. "Desperately desperate. Like a desperate _thing_."

Chuckling warmly, Varric continues, "So Hawke bellies up to the bar next to her, digs her elbows in and waves for the bartender to bring her a shot of the Hanged Man's finest."

"My second mistake," she rolls her eyes up in faux consideration. "Or my third, if you count coming here in the first place."

"Then, drink in hand, Hawke leans over and chirps: 'I would have said..._Tell me, do you feel...lucky?_'"

It takes a few seconds for it to sink in but when it does...

"Oh, _Wil_," the man who is _possessed by a spirit_ offers her a sympathetic glance, and then _laughs_. Head thrown back and _everything_.

_Nice_ does not even begin to describe the sound of it, and Wil wishes it were anything but. _Why can't he have a donkey laugh? Or bad teeth? _

"_She_ seemed to think it was funny," Wil diverts her attention back to Varric, who is lounging against the edge of the table. "And we got a job out of it, so...a win all around."

"Only if she can pay us," head shaking, Varric is the very picture of dubiousness. "You might get screwed over on this one, Hawke." He catches her knowing smirk. "And _not_ in a good way."

"Let her try," Wil doesn't want either man to know that she's got her own concerns about Isabela. "At the very least, she can't say she doesn't have the gold to pay us. That..._thing_ around her neck is probably worth more than I've earned all week."

"I'd like to see you try to take it if she doesn't want you to have it," Varric is interrupted by one of the Hanged Man's waitresses, a narrow-featured woman with dirty blonde hair and an over-reliance on face paint. Her tray is laden with their dinner and Wil is grateful for the distraction.

Not that she doesn't _attempt_ to defend her honor.

"I've got my ways: charm, wit and blade...remember? Although _she_ probably outmatches me on all three," Wil takes the nearest bowl of stew and scowls into the steam that wafts gently from its surface. It smells dodgy, like the scrap bowl they keep for Bello, but she's not eaten since early that morning, when she'd snuck Bethany out of the house to break up the monotony of her self-imposed house arrest and fetch supplies at the market. While she doesn't attack the concoction with the same gusto as Anders _I cannot believe a human can eat that quickly without choking to death a few times in the process_, she certainly doesn't hesitate to begin. "We really shouldn't assume the worst from her, just because she's hanging out in tavern. And is a pirate. And was surprisingly..._not_ forthcoming on a lot of details."

_So much for letting the boys know you're confident in your decisions. _

"_Dragon's maw_," Varric reminds her with a shrug. "Just keep your sword drawn. Or let Aveline dive in first."

"You know who's helpful when dealing with shady pirates," Anders stops shoveling food into his mouth long enough to talk. "_Mermen_."

"Heh." The man had an excellent point, and she loves that he made it. "Too bad about Flapsy and Cardwin."

"So give me the story about this mule, Hawke. We have an hour to kill before we head to Hightown, and if you're not going to tell me the _truth_..."

* * *

><p>"Another night, another clandestine jaunt into the Chantry," Wil directs this towards Aveline, who is scowling at her elbow. "I have a feeling your participation in my merry band of adventurers is near its end."<p>

"Whatever gave you that idea?" It seethes out quietly. Despite the assistance he'd given her when they'd saved Guardsman Donnic from his attackers, Aveline had neither trust nor any other warm feelings for Anders. That he's around tonight probably bothers her more than the scantily clad trouble bounding ahead and leading them towards another confrontation in the church. "And to think I was worried about _Bartrand_."

"Not _everything_ I do will be illegal...and we were able to take out some thugs along the way. _That's_ the sort of thing a guard captain can feel good about," Wil bumps her arm against the other woman's and smiles up through her messy hair. "Eh?"

"Is it good work if it's accidental? I don't know that it is."

"Would you rather I just...ignored them?" Sudden anger pulls the corner of Wil's mouth down. "Leave them and hope they don't rape or kill before someone with the purest of intentions wanders into them?"

"Of course not!" Aveline looks back at Varric, eyes widening in a signal for him to jump in at _any_ time to diffuse their friend.

He holds his tongue.

"I don't have the same options as you, Aveline," Wil keeps her voice low. Isabela is stopped ahead of them, at the elaborate door to the Chantry and Wil ends the argument with a sigh meant to loosen her frustration and vent a bit her own concern that this is a horrible idea.

_And _seriously_...is there no side entrance to this place? That bloody door is _so_ conspicuous._

"You can resume parsing the details of righteousness after we're done here," Isabela had not been thrilled when Wil turned up with Aveline in tow. "I just want to take care of Hayder."

"That _is_ what we're here for," Wil joins the dark-haired woman. "Are you certain you won't burst into flame the moment you cross the threshold?"

Despite the tense draw of her brow, this receives a sharp laugh from Isabela.

"A long time has passed since I visited a Chantry. A long time and _much_ debauchery," her lips press into a smirk. "I'll trust you to put me out if it happens."

"Of _course_. It's what I do!" Wil pulls the heavy door open and is forced to bite back another surge of _you should not be here_ as the moonlit pulpit emerges in front of them. Fortunately, Isabela remained very much not flaming.

Unfortunately, this man Hayder is not alone.

_...six, seven, eight._ Wil can't see into every shadow, but it's easy to assume that they are all teeming with Hayder's men. _Cheer up, Wilhelmina. This is why you drag your friends and whatever strangers you can charm into tagging along on these mad jaunts. _

"Isabela," Hayder's voice is sour milk and oil. _As if his stupid hair wasn't reason enough to dislike him on sight._ "I should have known you'd show up here."

"Then you need to rethink your policy of hiring the dumbest thugs," there's casual bravado in Isabela's reply despite the wariness in her eyes. "Or at least tell them to burn their orders."

"I appreciate your concern, Isabela," he spits it out. "But forgive me if I don't take advice from dead women. Which is what Castillon thinks you are. He was heartbroken when he found out you were shipwrecked. You really should have told him that you survived, to set his mind at ease if nothing else."

"Excuse me if Castillon's mind was not on my own," Isabela's back is arched in readiness.

"Where's the relic?" Hayder doesn't beat around.

_Relic?_ Wil's eyebrow shoots up. She's spent enough time in the wrong circles to know that _relic_ was its own kind of trouble. It was a word used by collectors, by fanatics, by the powerful pious. _This is the part where trusting pirates in seedy taverns comes to bite you in the ass._

"I lost it," stated with flat honesty, Wil has no doubt Isabela is telling the truth. "Castillon's just going to have to do without."

"I would ask how you lost it, but you _are_ the woman who _misplaced_ an entire ship full of valuable cargo," Hayder sniffs and shares a knowing glance with the heavily armed woman on his elbow. "Nasty habit to have, Isabela."

"Cargo?" Isabela's head shakes in disbelief that turns quickly to anger. "Those were _people_, Hayder. Castillon took their money and sold them into slavery!"

_Point for Isabela. _Wil feels slightly better about who she's backing in this face off.

"People who were worth 100 soveriegns a head, and you let them scurry into the wilds," Hayder growls. "And what with the relic missing...Castillon's going to be sorry he ever cared."

"It seems like Castillon was already pretty sorry," Wil takes this opportunity to assumes a more readied stance. "Why not spare him this one regret? Let him think Isabela's dead."

"No," Isabela's hands are inching towards the top of her boots. "You're trying to be reasonable. _Reasonable_ isn't something Hayder does. There's only one way to settle this."

The blade flashes out of her hand through moonlight so quickly that its target, Hayder's right hand, doesn't even flinch until blood begins to burble from the wound in the center of her chest.

"Fuck," her face goes slack and then she collapses.

Wil is, thankfully, a bit faster on the uptake and she whips her pommel against Hayder's brow before his sword is even drawn, sending him staggering back towards Isabela, who sinks a second dagger into his exposed throat. Crimson sprays out and Wil shields her face with one arm and narrowly avoids an arrow that speeds past her shoulder.

"Take out the archers!" She forces her voice to crack out above the din of sword striking shield _Isabela is helping Aveline_ and the whirring of Bianca _Varric has found his alcove_. A hiss sounds behind her while she's searching the entrance for any sign of Anders and she spins around and drives her blade forward into the stomach of an oncoming rogue. Momentum and her attacker's own weak armor allows the weapon to sink almost to the hilt and Wil's face comes terrifyingly close to touching the other woman's.

Not that the lack of contact makes it better- the pain-widened blue eyes and twisted expression is burned into her mind and she can't get away fast enough, her feet scrambling for leverage and her hands aching as she tugs her sword out and sends the woman falling back with a moist thud.

"Uh, Hawke? You might want to help your mage," Varric is focused on a pair of bowmen firing on them from the upper balcony, but he takes a second to jerk his chin towards the main door, where there are four raiders surrounding a blond man in nothing but a ratty coat and tatty feathered pauldrons.

Panic flailing beneath her breast, Wil's foot slips in newly spilled blood but she manages to get to Anders while he's still on his feet and fighting. He's too pinned in to do more than lash out with his staff and they're too insistent for him to get an opportunity to cast anything.

The positioning is problematic. Normally, she would just plow forward into the center of the group, her sword whipping around her enough in the way of defense. But with Anders there, she can't risk it. Instead, she sweeps her blade out to catch the middle two raiders across their backs, wounding one of them, and they all turn on her in unison.

_A madwoman with a sword makes a more satisfying target than a trapped mage_. Wil steps back slowly, her shoulders down and her scarlet-streaked sword aloft in front of her.

The raiders follow.

With some breathing room, Anders plants his staff into the ground and draws a deep breath. Then his eyes widen and find her own, his lips moving to mouth these words: "I'm sorry."

Distortion comes next, a pulse of invisible energy that drags across and into her skin and replaces her thoughts with grey noise and the throbbing light of an overcast day. It passes quickly, however, and she regains herself well before the raiders who have lowered their weapons to tend to their sudden, agonizing headaches.

Wil lunges towards the nearest enemy while Anders flings a carefully targeted bolt of lightning at the one who's furthest away. The remaining pair are fumbling to awareness that is short lived, as Anders tosses out two shocks and even Wil feels it raising the hair along her neck.

_Not as unpleasant as it could be._ She takes a step forward and then spins around, her sword thrusting back past her hip to bury itself into one of the staggered enemies. Although this leaves her open for a blow from behind, it keeps her from having to see the results of her own violence.

"It's done, I think," Anders sounds exhausted and, once she's knocked the body away from her weapon, Wil gets visual confirmation. He's also openly curious. "I've never seen a normal person shrug off a spell like that before. Did it effect you at all?"

"Of _course_," it comes out too fast, too defensively. She's thinks back to early mornings walking to work with her father. Sometimes it would be to a lord's manor, where he taught and she cleaned. Sometimes it was to the site of a rumored caravan robbery, or a recently abandoned homestead, where they would pick over the scraps left behind in search of something valuable to take to market. Sometimes it was even a jaunt to deliver poultices to the farmers on the furthest outreaches of Lothering, a service provided by the Hawkes only during lean times as it was the sort of thing that drew unwanted attention.

Father had encouraged her training to protect Bethany, but he'd also wanted her to protect herself, from bandits, from templars, from other desperate apostates who wouldn't be able to recognize a sympathizer on sight. He'd take these walks as an opportunity to explain how spells originated from him, what their effects would be, and how she could anticipate and even absorb some of them without ill effect.

_"Flame and ice, lightning...stone. It will all hurt you as surely as the real thing. But some energies can be deflected with will alone...and by simply knowing what to expect."_

Anders is still watching her, and she shrugs off his interest.

"You gave me fair warning. Had you caught me by surprise, I would have been out just like they were," it might be true, even though she knows it's not. She looks away, the bodies on the floor serving as a nice distraction. "What an unholy mess for to leave for some poor initiate to come across in the morning."

"We should strip them, make it especially shocking," Isabela joins them, her arms already laden with bloodied weapons. "Aveline told me that this is your gig. I thought I would save you the time."

"Thanks," she sheaths her sword and tugs her pack loose. "Anything worthwhile?"

"Not that I saw," Isabela holds up a stiletto, its handle delicately carved, and then cracks it against the wall. The result is a stiletto, its handle delicately twisted in her hand. "Pretty, but worth nothing in a fight."

"I'm not complaining. Seems like Hayder's lax hiring practices benefitted us both this evening," Wil assesses the lot Isabela hands off. It's mostly iron daggers and a nice pair of leather bracers. All in all, it will probably net her a silver or two. "Although I _am_ interested in that blade you pulled out of Hayder's sidekick."

This earns a slight frown and then a smirk.

"She had it coming, trust me. They all did," her fingers go to run along the wrap that covers her raven hair, and Isabela is clearly unhappy thinking about them. "Hayder won't be able to run to Castillon, but that doesn't mean I'm safe. The relic is the only thing that will get me out of trouble. Until I find it..."

"Relic," Wil repeats the word, remembering her earlier reaction. "And what exactly is this relic? Not something that can destroy worlds, I hope."

"Oh, nothing so exciting, I'm certain. I don't know what it is, to be honest." _Honest_ comes out slightly wrong, but Wil lets it slide. It's not as if she completely trusts Isabela, nor is she tied to her in any meaningful way. All _she'd_ done was kill a man who participated in trading slaves.

_"Is it good work if it's accidental? I don't know that it is."_

"If you need any help, I might be able to provide it," Wil sees Aveline cringing over Isabela's shoulder. "Just let me know what I'm getting myself into next time."

Face brightening at the offer, Isabela makes a low _tsk_ sound and grins wickedly.

"Where's the fun in that? Of my top ten favorite nights of all time, _none_ of them happened because I knew what I was getting myself into," she lowers her voice to a purr. "Going in blind doesn't have to be _bad_."

"Something tells me that we're not talking about the same things, Isabela."

"Not yet, anyway," she strides forward, hips rolling beneath her revealing white dress. _Shirt?_ Wil isn't quite certain she noticed before what an insignificant amount of fabric there is to the garment and she doesn't know if she's relieved or disappointed when Isabela stops inches away to make her offer. "Until then, I'll follow you around when I feel like it. You seem the sort who can find excitement. And...," her eyes _shine_ for this part, "I keep a room at the Hanged Man, in case you get lonely. If you'd like to go in blind, I'd avoid reading the walls in the pail closets. Now, I have a standing appointment at the Blooming Rose that will give me _so_ much grief if I'm late."

The others at least have the decency to wait until she'd gone before they make their remarks.

"Nice girl," Anders taps his staff on the ground a few times, deep in thought. "Familiar, too."

"I don't even want to know why," Aveline glowers down at Varric. "Everyone should check their pockets and coinpurses, make certain she didn't trade them out for some uncomfortable disease."

"_Ave_line!" There's a stupor that Wil has to emerge from before she can say anything that makes real sense. "I don't _think_ she would rob us."

"She wouldn't have to pick your pocket, Hawke. She'd just have to wait until you fell asleep."

"Hey!" Wil's face goes incredibly hot.

"Ugh, _don't_," Varric shudders as he ushers them out of the Chantry. "I live there, too. I've _read the pail closet walls_, so to speak."

"Andraste's ass! How desperate do you think I am?" The night air is a cool delight against Wil's flushed skin. "I don't _need_ to seek out pirates in shady taverns to get off, you know."

"No, last time I checked you preferred elves in shady taverns."

"What?" This is clearly news to Anders.

_"What?"_ When did Aveline find out about Sorrell? _Bethany._ "That's none of your business, _Captain_. Now go back up to the keep and harass your men about _their_ love lives. Mine is off-limits at the moment."

A knot appears between Aveline's brows and her mouth turns as if she means to apologize. Instead, she shakes her head and starts up the stairs to the Viscount's Keep.

"Is she jealous?" Anders watches her go.

"No. Just pathologically overprotective," Wil should shout up after her friend, let her know that she's not angry, just annoyed and a little...weirded out. She didn't talk about Sorrell because that would require explaining their arrangement, and it was difficult for her to put into words without coming across as a bit of a user. _Probably because you _are_ a bit of a user._ The truth bit at her. _Aaaand that desperate._

* * *

><p>"So tell me, Hawke," Varric leans back against the door to the Hanged Man, his gloved fingers running along the collar of his duster. "When are we going to see the likable mage again?"<p>

Wil knew this was coming. Anders, who'd been in such good spirits for most of the evening, had become convinced they were being followed by a templar once they got out of Hightown. This paranoia involved a fair amount of snapping at her and Varric to be quiet, even when they weren't talking, and glaring into shadows and around corners, staff readied for attack.

"Soon, I hope. Nobody's come around the square that I know of and if you've not heard anything... Poor Beth. She's going crazy. If I were her, I'd be sneaking out regardless of what might happen. She stays put, though."

"That's because she's smart and knows that the templars here don't mess around," Varric's eyes darken. "I'll see if I can't get any more information tomorrow. Sunshine doesn't belong cooped up in that hole of yours, and Blondie is a cocked and loaded crossbow. "

The implications of what Varric says catches her off guard. _Does he think Anders is just around to hold Bethany's spot? Is _that_ how I'm coming across?_

"So one mage is enough for you?" Wil keeps her tone carefully neutral.

"Not at all. I'd prefer _no_ mages, but I like your sister. And Blondie has potential. It's just that they attract a lot of attention, and then there's the small matter of demonic possession," he sighs and straightens up. "I know he'll be useful for our expedition, and that whole selfless healer of the poor and downtrodden thing makes him a classic romantic lead, if a tragic one, but you need to remember what he's capable of."

_Justice...blazing blue eyes and cobalt lines flaring out from beneath his skin as if he has lyrium in his veins. He's coming for her, hatred twisting Anders' features into something unrecognizable but she will not move, she will not betray how pantswettingly terrifying it is because that's what anyone else would do and, for some reason, she can't bear to be _anyone else_ to him._

"As if I could forget. He _was_ one Aveline away from bringing his wrath down on me, remember?" Wil forces a smile. "On the plus side...he's..._something_."

"You are _insightful_, Hawke. I think you missed you calling as a writer," eyes rolling up, Varric has said almost everything he needs to. "I'd just feel better if you kept your interactions with him...public. For the time being."

"Your concern is touching," it comes out bone dry.

"Who said anything about concern? I'm just protecting a business venture, that's all." He's got the door opened and in the shaft of light that spills out over him, his expression is knowing. "It's what I do."

* * *

><p><strong>Note from SF:<strong> I have to thank Tarantella and the Anders Thread on the BioWare Social Network for planting the idea of mermen in shell bras in my head.


	7. Place

"I thought Mother was going to have an apoplexy when she saw all those bloody knives in the basin," Bethany's face is barely visible beyond the hood of her cloak. The garment, while suspicious, is also necessary on this unusually cool morning. Wil keeps her hood up, too. For consistency, if nothing else. "I can't imagine it's easy for her, knowing that her daughters are…well."

"Stumbling across bloody weapons on a regular basis?" Wil can't mince words. "She sees our clothes, my swords. What? Has she convinced herself that I'm an unconventional butcher?"

"No!" It's mild exasperation. "But those daggers are proof there are others involved, sometimes a lot of others, and they have weapons that get used, too."

Beth has a point, and it makes Wil's head throb. _Or maybe that's the utter lack of sleep making your head throb._

"Why were you out so late last night?" Bethany ducks into a narrow alley that will connect them to the furthest end of the Lowtown bizarre, near the Hanged Man. She'd been awake when Wil had crawled into bed a few hours before dawn. _A few hours before right now._

"You know, the usual. We were helping someone deal with a problem," she laughs. "Could I be any vaguer?"

"That's fine, I don't need the details." Bethany begins flapping her cloak out as they walk, the hem billowing out around her boots.

"You'll hear all about it at Aveline's _thing_ tomorrow evening, anyway. I might have actually gotten home at a decent hour, but Anders swore there was a templar following us. After I left Varric at the Hanged Man, I checked out the square and then went back to the undercity, just to be sure," Wil doesn't go into detail, on the off chance that Bethany won't ask for it.

"_Just_ to be sure?"

"I didn't even go in, I just lurked outside his clinic for a few minutes and made sure no one else was…lurking." _I am the creepiest._ "There didn't seem to be, so I left."

"Hmmm," clearly Bethany thinks there's more to this story. "It's fine to admit that you like him, Mina. Do you think _I_ would judge you?"

"That's because you don't_ know_," Wil stops, her stomach not exactly behaving the way it's supposed to. She feels queasy, and not in an _exhausted_ way, or an_ is that all _my_ blood?_ way. It's more of a _don't say those things_ way. Things are harder for her to ignore when someone else sees them, too.

Bethany comes to a halt beside her and whirls around, eyes glinting with curiosity and amusement. _Wil_ was usually the one teasing _her_ about secret crushes and how she reacted to the advances of interested parties. That the tables might be turned seems to delight her.

"_What_ don't I know?" Her entire face lights up. "Is he weirdly bald? Does he kick puppies because they're not kittens?"

"Maker, Beth," laughing despite the relative seriousness of the subject, Wil can't help but imagine Anders cursing some adorable baby animal for being the wrong _kind_ of adorable baby animal. "Nothing like that. It's much less...well. He's an abomination. Kinda."

The amusement is dead on Bethany's face, which goes slack with shock at the quick turn of admission. "An abomination," she murmurs and it sounds like an echo. "_Kinda_."

"It's a spirit of justice, or it was," Wil's throat aches. She'd not explained this to anyone...Aveline and Varric were content to assume he was a garden-variety possessed mage. "I don't remember the details _exactly_, my brain shut down during the conversation, but he and the spirit were friends. Justice needed a place to stay and wanted to help Anders, I don't know, free all mages? Something _insignificant_ like that. So Anders invited him in, he got corrupted, and now..."

"Mina," Bethany exhales. "I'm so sorry."

Blinking rapidly, Wil has no idea why Beth would express such a thing to _her_.

"Why are you _sorry_?"

For a few seconds, Bethany gives her the oddest look. _Have I missed something here? _Then, as if coming out of a daze, her head shakes and she offers Wil a sad smile.

"His heart was in the right place, even if it was a _foolish_ thing to do," she turns and begins down the alley and Wil follows, still not quite certain what just happened. Then, as suddenly as she'd started away, Bethany stops again and looks over her shoulder. "I have an idea, something that might get us out of this expedition."

Wil catches up in two long strides, intrigued by what her sister has to say. Bethany wasn't so much an _ideas_ person, not a surprise considering her main concern in life is not being noticed, but that didn't mean the ones she had were without merit.

"You know how Gamlen lost our estate to those slavers?" She speaks in hushed tones, her chin down and dark eyes flashing.

"Nope! I've been in a cave for these past fifteen months...fingers in both ears," Wil snorts. "We had an estate? You mean…the sort of place _people_ live and not rats? I had _no_ idea."

One ebony eyebrow arches in annoyance.

"This is the first I've heard about it," Wil is absolute deadpan. "The estate, I mean."

"Are you finished?" Bethany waits for a reluctant nod. "Apparently there's a will in the family vault. Gamlen says that slavers guard the front entrance, but he has a key to a cellar door that's accessible through Darktown. If we can get _our_ hands on _that_ will...maybe Mother could petition the Viscount and we wouldn't have to go to the Deep Roads after all!"

That _was_ an idea, but it's unclear how much of it is strictly Bethany's. _This is the difference between us. Beth is excited, and I'm looking for the most cynical angle. Gamlen is a liar and an ass. And smelly…and probably foul with skanky disease. But...where am I going? Oh._ Gamlen wasn't _stupid_. If he honestly thought there was a document that could gain him the Amell fortune, or even a fraction of it, wouldn't he have gone for it himself?

_Unless it's just _that_ risky_. She tries to picture Gamlen storming the manor, willingly facing all those slavers on his own. Two seconds in, he's felled by a simple snare trap.

"So either we're walking into death or," suddenly it comes on like the first bright rays of sunlight peaking over the horizon. "Or the will is no use to _him_."

"That's my thought, too," Bethany's expression is hard. Apparently Wil doesn't have the family supply of skepticism to herself anymore. "He's got Mother so convinced that our grandparents hated her for running off with Father, but _I_ think he's hiding something. I _know_ it's dangerous, but _everything_ is dangerous. If we could do this one thing for her, Mina, it might bring her some peace. She'll never be the same, because of Carver, but she might stop wishing she'd died with him!"

Dammit. In the face of _that_, her mother wishing she were dead, and Bethany doing that trembly thing with her lower lip that Wil _cannot_ deny…

"Varric's supposed to be…gathering information. If everything comes back templar free, then we'll go tonight," keeping her voice light, Wil segues into the next order of business. "Breaking into a home that should be yours, but is now owned by slavers that you are more than willing to kill: Good or bad?"

"Taking what's yours- not bad_ always_. Killing slavers- good. So…good? Why do you ask?"

With a shrug, Wil tilts her chin up so she can see past the filth washed buildings to the sky. It's an expanse of slate grey punctuated by almost imperceptible shifts of white.

"Then you can help me think of what to say to Aveline to convince her to join us," her hand comes out from within her cloak and she offers it to Bethany. "But first things first…onward to the market, Ms. Hawke._ We_ need to get back home before Gamlen wakes up and eats all the good cheese."

* * *

><p>"You <em>do<em> realize that I had Seneschal Bran in here asking me if I knew about the bodies in the Chantry this morning?" Aveline has perched herself at the edge of her desk, while Wil sits next to her, her butt fully on the desk and crushing at least one scroll flat and disrupting most everything else. "And then _Varric_," her hand waves at the closed door to her office where they both know Varric is stationed on the other side, listening for any scraps of their conversation he can catch. "I've been Captain of the city guard for _three days_, Hawke, and he's already asking me pull permits for him."

"Well, you know Varric!" Wil was going to kick him in the shins once they were off the Viscount's property, if only for putting Aveline in such a foul mood. "He's a man who gets things done, and that involves..."

"_Don't._"

"But-"

"_No_," Aveline stands and looms over her. Wil feels suddenly like a little girl who'd just been caught trying to lure one of Gray Mellie's kittens away from the rest of its litter, believing she could pretend that she'd found it in the yard and no one could _possibly_ think she was lying. "I can't do _anything_ to jeopardize this, and I have to set a good example for my men so they'll do their best. And to prove that I'm _worthy_ of being called Captain of the Kirkwall City Guard."

"Captain," Wil stares down at the thick wool carpet that covers the floor Aveline's new office, catching sight of her trap ruined boot and she realizes how very worn it is all over, how _everything_ she owns is worn, or distressed, or stained with sweat or blood. "You were right the other day, when you said I expect too much. I should show more respect for what you've accomplished."

Aveline's brows pull close and her arms go to cross over her stomach. The armor she wears isn't custom, but it's well-forged plate and Wil admires how comfortably her friend owns it. _Aveline was _born_ to do this and she _knows_ it._

"Yes, you probably _should_ show more respect, but it wouldn't feel right coming from you. Besides, this is good practice for all the ones who are going to call me _the Fereldan bitch_ behind my back. If I can handle your mouth, I can handle anyone's."

_Nice to be good for something._ Being careful to rearrange the contents of Aveline's desk to something that was _nothing_ like the state she'd found them, Wil begins towards the door.

"We'll at least see you at the Hanged Man tomorrow night, right? It should be fun."

"I did promise, didn't I?" Regret is clear in her green eyes.

"I stashed away a bottle of fancy-pants wine just for you. And Bethany will be there! Although I'm hoping to...," Wil's mouth goes a dry. _Weird_. She swallows hard a few times and coughs her way through. "I thought I might introduce her to Anders."

With an undiplomatic striking of her palm to her forehead, Aveline's posture goes slightly slack.

"And here I thought you _liked_ your sister."

"Of course I like my..._what_? He's not a _bad person_, and she's not had anyone to talk about magey stuff. Not since Father died. I think they'd get along."

"He's an _abomination_, Hawke."

"I'm not sending them on a honeymoon to Val Royeaux! I'm not even sure he'd be interested in her. Or her _him_. It just seems fitting. Two pretty apostates flee Ferelden and find each other on a foreign coast? _Varric_ would agree with me."

"Except they're not finding each other if you're trying to smush them together," _smush_ comes with some regrettably awkward hand gestures. "Ugh. I'm not getting involved. Not in _this_."

"Fine," Wil pulls the door open and Varric casually swings in, his fingers waggling to greet Aveline, who responds with the fiercest glare Wil has _ever_ seen. "We'll see you tomorrow night, Aveline."

"And be sure to leave the _captain_ in the barracks," Varric shakes his head. "Nothing ruins a good game of Diamondback faster than the _law_ glowering from the end of the table."

The door slams in their faces.

After a few seconds of stunned silence, Varric raises his gaze to meet Wil's. "Eh. Could have been worse. At least she didn't try to pick me up and _throw_ me out. Embarrassing _and_ painful."

"Speaking from experience, it sounds like," Wil steps back and then heads out of the guard's annex. The faster she can get away from there the better. While she'd never exactly felt as if she belonged here, never has the distance between what she is and what it represents seemed so vast. "I'm not so thrilled with you, myself. Aveline was in such a state by the time I got to her, she wouldn't even consider coming with us tonight."

He doesn't immediately respond as they continue down the main stairs of the Viscount's Keep. Wil realizes that he's moving away as they descend and looking…

"Is that you being…not suspicious?"

"I just don't want to be within reach when you hear this. That's all."

"Maker, what _now_?" Wil stops in mid-step, close to the bottom of the stairs but not completely down. A woman, nobility or a wealthy merchant judging by the gaudy orange and teal silk dress she wears, is forced to reroute herself around Wil and she offers a rather rude gesture that is matched only by the absolute revulsion on her face. _Am I that ugly, is she that lazy, or is she just offended that they let scum like _me_ into the places she thinks should be for her kind alone?_ "I'm _Fereldan_, too."

"I know," the woman shot back, her accent marking her as Antivan. "I have a _nose_."

"Oh, _clever_," Wil stomps down the remaining steps, her cheeks burning. _Of all the stupid things for me to get worked up over. Who the fuck cares what she thinks of me?_ "I don't really smell like wet dog, do I?"

Varric's on his way back over, playing the good friend a higher priority than saving his own hide from her frustration.

"I like that you went right for the wet dog. No. You smell fine, for a Lowtowner. Although, to be fair, I _do_ live in a tavern that most people rate as being _somewhat_ better than drinking in a literal gutter," he stops when he sees her face. "Is this what happens when you don't have Sunshine around to cheer you up?"

"Maybe_." And maybe fresh air will make you feel better. _Her feet compel her through the front doors. Then truth forces its way out of her mouth in a way she's not quite used to, "I'm just having one of those days where everything reminds me of my _place_. My place in my family, my place in this town, my place in my own life." _Oh, shut up, Wil. _"Whine, whine, whine…_moan_."

Varric's laughter echoes across the Viscount's Way as he takes her arm like a suitor presenting her at a formal ball. Or so she assumes that's what it's like, having never had a suitor, much less one that would want to flaunt her at a _ball_.

"Don't worry, Hawke. I've spent enough time with the Merchant's Guild to know what a real self-pity party sounds like. _You're_ just frustrated, and with _good_ reason," he's speaking in a smoother tone than normal, his words precisely chosen despite the casual nature of what he says. "You're a refugee and the sister of a mage in a town where the templars very nearly run the show. The odds are against you, and you're feeling it. But it's like this- you're quick, you're good with a sword and _now_ you're connected. Aveline will need your help as soon as she realizes that Kirkwall can't be lawfully punched into submission. Until then…just appreciate the fact that you _don't_ have to work with Seneschal Bran, especially knowing all the creepy stuff he gets up to."

"I…_don't_ know all the creepy stuff he gets up to, actually," she thinks about the man she's only seen in flashes during her visits to Aveline.

"Be glad. He…has his _quirks_. Makes me regret being a busybody. Sometimes," Varric releases her arm and this time even he wouldn't be able to deny the worry that twitches between his brows. "Feel better?"

Wil considers. The day has turned out to be less overwhelmingly chill and grey than the morning had promised, and the sun sparkling off of the crystal veins in the Hightown masonry made the view from near the Keep quite lovely. And Varric was right.

"Sure," she bites at the edge of her tongue for a second, preparing herself to be re-annoyed. "So what's the news you were convinced would earn you physical retribution?"

"Well, I talked to a friend of mine, and as of yesterday there are two templars making the rounds, one in Darktown and the other in the alienage. No one can tell me who they're looking for or what they're asking, but…"

"It doesn't matter," Wil cuts him off, her stomach twisting. _Balls. This is bad news, and it means that Anders' paranoia might not have been paranoia. _"It's better than them poking around the slums, but it means Bethany and Bello will be spending another night in…and we're down to three without Aveline."

"There's always Isabela…depending on what we're doing. She isn't terrible in a fight."

"Well, there's the thing. It might not involve _any_ fighting," Wil thinks back on the letter that had been slipped in the outside doorframe of their building. She knew before she read it that it was from Athenril- she'd never allowed any of those smugglers to know which apartment was theirs. "A dwarf named Anso…have you heard of him?"

"No. Might be carta, or recently arrived to the surface," Varric ducks his head towards her, and Wil knows without looking that he's seen his brother or one of the other Merchant's Guild members. "I would say run, but there's not _anything_ more conspicuous than your ridiculously long limbs flapping around."

"Ass," Wil almost runs. But it's a fact that she currently has a negative amount of patience for someone like Bartrand so she instead does her best to block Varric _and_ Bianca without drawing too much attention to either of them. "The name was given to me by my old boss, so Maker knows what this Anso is into. But as long as the pay is decent and the job doesn't involve mass murder, I'm willing to consider it."

"So cynical, Hawke," they're on the steps that connect the upper and lower markets, and Varric is breathing a little easier. "I'm going to be optimistic and say that our kill average will be…two apiece. Four if lyrium's involved."

"I should take that bet," Wil turns over the likelihood of three huge skirmishes within one week in her head. "But…no. That just makes me seem like I _want_ every night to end in a bloodbath."

* * *

><p>"You could be a rich woman Hawke...or at least up a few more gold," Varric's wading waist deep in the twisted black corpses of something that Anders had called shades. Wil can't say she knew what one was before tonight, but she <em>can<em> say that she'd die a happy woman if she never saw one again. As it is, and despite her weakened state, there's a very good chance that she'll get off her ass and _dance_ when Anders finally gets around to torching them.

"Don't remind me. I should have known I was dooming us by even considering that tonight was going to be anything but a massOUCH!" She glares at Anders, who's kneeled beside her with a bloodied shard of glass caught between his thumb and forefinger.

"Hey, _I'm_ not the one who flung herself into a bookshelf," he drops the glass and presses his fingers against her upper forearm, which looks, from her woozy perspective, like it had recently been run through a meatgrinder. It feels like it, too, and she automatically jerks away from his touch.

"It's been awhile since I've fought with someone who knew how to use a sword like that." Without prompting, the past hour comes back with a blur of white hair, tan skin and a blade that seemed impossibly large considering the lithe man who wielded it. "With Aveline, as long as I stay on her left side, I can usually avoid getting gutted."

"Yeah, can we talk about this guy?" Varric steps past the shades and begins poking through the pile of goods collected from the abandoned mansion where this long, intensely bloody, evening had found them. "Blondie brought up a good point on our way over here- he kind of set you up for some shit, Hawke."

"He also _tore a man's heart out of his chest_," Anders sneers this out as another piece of glass is pulled, followed by a small amount of magic to staunch the bleeding.

"_Really?_ I guess I _missed_ that somehow," She scowls at Anders through her hair, but is less angry at him than she is herself. This is the third time in a row where helping strangers had gotten her into trouble, and her justifications for following along were growing more and more..._crazy. Unjustifiable_. _At least Anders had something you needed, and Karl was worth helping. Isabela walked you right up to a person she had to have known wanted her dead, and Fenris..._ "I don't even know _why_ I agreed to help him."

"If only Aveline were here," Varric tosses aside the gold chain he'd been examining to flip through a leather bound journal. "I'm sure she'd be able to tell you _exactly_ why you helped him. I, being a gentleman who probably couldn't take you in fair combat, will simply shut my mouth and practice my sad, yet inferior, not-elven eyes."

"Fuck you, Tethras." Wil heaves a sigh and wishes more than anything she was at home in bed, or even just _near_ a bed so she could just pass right out. From exhaustion, from loss of blood, from _embarrassment_. Instead she decides to watch Anders as he continues his delicate task with impressive precision and, new since the last time she'd looked, a deeply furrowed brow. "Is it _that_ bad? You look like you're about to declare war on my _arm_."

He doesn't respond for a few minutes, although she knows he heard her by the way his forehead creases deepen for a second before he stops everything to re-collect himself. She should probably stop watching, if only because she's starting to think it annoys him, but she's just noticed how his nose is slightly crooked and...

_No._

His thumb brushes across the worst of the gashing and it's not as painful as it was the last time he tested it. When she doesn't flinch, he makes another, firmer, pass and blue light seeps out of his hand causing her entire arm to tingle and something unidentifiable to spark across her stomach.

"I think that's it," he withdraws to stand, his hand tucking under her armpit to help her up, too. "I don't have anything to wrap it with, and I don't really trust anything here...but the bleeding is mostly slowed to an ooze now."

He lets go and she mentally staggers, the dust motes catching on the silver moonlight that filters in through the skylights above them start to blur, to consume her vision, and she's afraid she might faint before he catches her elbow. She looks up at him again, re-noticing his slightly crooked nose, the flush of his cheeks and the way his dark eyes are full of concern that's more than clinical.

"I don't have an elf fetish or anything," it tumbles from her lips, conjured from no thought she could recall, and hearing it out loud is like ice water being pumped into her veins. Never has she gone from groggy to painfully clearheaded so quickly and _you were all over Aveline last night, and here you are stepping in it yourself. _

"On _that_ note," Varric has packed their scavenged payment and helps her sheath her sword. "I say we let the elf deal with those...things," he tilts his head towards the pile of shades. "Or just let his magister come home to find them himself."

"Agreed," Anders won't look at the shades _or_ Wil, content to let Varric guide her out until they reach the front door. "Wil."

She's overcome with dizziness again and doesn't turn around for fear of collapsing against him or confessing something else she never realized she wanted, or needed, to say.

His fingers don't really touch her, but she feels the bloom of magic at the base of her skull and it unfurls nothingness where confusion had held and it's...pleasant.

"I don't think this guy is someone you want to slip up around," his voice is low, bemused. "Especially about an elf fetish, or lack of one."

And he's right. But the elf has more important concerns than being an elf.

He paces, his gait animated but delicate, his bare feet soundless against the stone veranda in front of his former master's mansion. White stands of hair flare away from his face when he pivots, and his eyes when he goes by are sometimes glittering cold with barely concealed hatred and sometimes soft with regret for what he's put them through.

Them. Varric and Wil. Not _Anders_ at all.

"My entire existence has been ruined by magic," his voice is rich, in rage bigger than he is, almost an entity on its own. Now it's merely a seethe that colors every word with enmity. "My _former_ master, the other magisters...the things that they have done to me. And here I am, in your debt, but also the debt of a _mage_."

The way he says it crawls in Wil's blood, and she senses Anders tensing beside her.

"Here it comes," Anders cannot match Fenris' bitterness, but it's there. He's clearly been waiting for _someone_ to take him to task on his magic.

"I saw you casting spells," the elf stops to accuse.

"Congratulations on having _eyes_."

"I should have known what you were from the moment I met you, but I had _other_ concerns," he turns swiftly onto Wil, stepping close to her, so close she can clearly see the faint lines that punctuate his chin, deliberate scars on his tan skin. "He's a viper in your midst. You would be a _fool_ to trust him."

His eyes are every bit as beautiful as Sorrell's, despite being nowhere near as vibrant. They're loathing and sorrow that reassures her of the fact that he truly believes his warning is necessary.

She hopes he sees the same conviction in hers when she responds.

"I _disagree_ with your assessment on mages. They're no more or less untrustworthy than any other person. Anders here is a Grey Warden _and_ a healer-"

"And a few other things that I'd rather not have mentioned," he chuckles nervously and shoots her a grateful look. "If you don't mind."

"Besides," she continues, wondering if he _really_ thought she was dense enough to announce to a mage hating, heart-punching elf that he was an _abomination_. "You seemed fine enough with him when he was helping go after your former master. Hypocritical much?"

_Sigh_. Fenris clearly knows he's not going to get through to her. Not now, and not like _this_. Instead he stands up straight, his posture remarkable and proud for a few seconds before he settles back down into a more defeated posture.

"I meant it when I said I was in your debt," he doesn't make eye-contact. "If I seem ungrateful, I apologize. You've done more for me than I deserve and I feel that the payment Anso promised is no longer sufficient. I have no more gold, nor possessions, to offer, but I am willing to assist you, should you find yourself in need."

It hangs between them, Fenris now watching her in his guarded way, and Wil wondering if she was dreaming, a rehash of the previous night where she stumbled into danger but emerged with a something resembling an impressively capable ally.

"I...might need help. We're planning an expedition to the Deep Roads. Your skills might come in handy," she casts a sidelong look at Anders, and thinks about how Bethany would have reacted to being called a viper, how she would react to someone like Fenris who probably _did_ have horror stories about blood magic and the cruelty of corrupt mages. "But will you be able to work with mages?"

"_Mages?_" That was Anders, and she ignores him.

"_Mages_," this is Fenris, and once again his voice wraps the two syllables in loathing. "I am not unreasonable. I know that magic can be used for good. So I can work with them, yes. As long as you _and_ they know I am watching them."

"Yaaaay," Anders sounds _anything_ but thrilled by this uneasy agreement. "Nothing like getting to fight beside someone who can barely tolerate my _existence_."

"Something tells me this isn't your first time," Fenris roughs it up. "And _not_ just because you're a mage."

_Ouch_. Wil moves so that she's more of a presence between them. "Do you have a place to stay, Fenris?"

"Sure," Fenris shrugs and raises his eyes to assess the manse that sprawls above and beyond them. "If Danarius wants his mansion, he's more than welcome to take it back."

With that, he nods a quick good-bye and disappears into his new home. _If a corpse strewn manor owned by your former slave-master could ever be called a _home_. Still..._

"I'm jealous I didn't think of this first," Wil stares at the front door. "Seems _way_ easier than petitioning the Viscount or trying to buy our estate back. Also, can I just say that this has been the _strangest_ week of my life?"

"Strange?" They fall away and turn to leave Hightown for the evening. "In a few years, I think you'll look back on this week with nothing but fondness...you did meet _me_, after all."

"I sense another wager," Anders is remaining close to her, whether it's because he's afraid she might collapse or another reason, born from either curiosity or gratitude, she's uncertain. "A few in fact."

"In four years, will I consider this to have been a good week?" Wil can't think of any others.

"In four years, who will you remember fondly?" The smile that curves Varric's lips indicates that, in his mind, _he's_ the odds-on favorite. "Or _not_ so fondly."

"Or both!" Anders' face is twisted in an odd little smirk as he glances over at her. "From what I've seen, you could end up hating _and_ loving all of us."

It's a joke with truth simmering just below the surface but it's far too late, and Wil far too ready to pass out, for it to receive the examination it deserves.

* * *

><p><strong>Note from SF:<strong> Fenris. He's hard for me to write, so he gets to stay close to script.

Also, thanks to everyone reading and reviewing! The feedback has been so appreciated.


	8. Death's Breath Cavern

"So what you're telling me is this: you're the foreman of a mine called the Bone Pit, you hire Fereldan refugees for little more than they could make panhandling for coin in the sewers, and now you need help figuring out why production has stopped and you haven't had any contact with your overseers in almost a week?"

The man nodded, his black eyes feverish.

"Well I don't know much, but I think your _first_ mistake was calling it the Bone Pit," Wil smirks. "What? Was _Death Trap_ taken?"

A groan comes from behind her, and she's pretty sure it's Fenris. _He's needs to learn what he's dealing with at some point. Might as well be now. _

"_I_ did not name it that!" Hubert's sneer adds a silent _insolent bitch_ to everything he says to her. "_This_. Talking does me no good! What I need is someone to go and get my workers moving again. Every day that passes loses me more gold than any of those doglovers will see in their lifetime. Can't you see how important it is?"

_It's a job, Wil. You might be able to make a lot of gold, Wil. Don't fuck this up, _Wil_._

"Yes," she speaks deliberately. "Utmost importance. Replenishing your pockets, that is. To the Void with those Fereldans, anyway...right?"

"_Haaaaaawke_," Varric sounds the alarm.

"No, it is fine," the Orlesian merchant is clearly confused. "And perhaps Kirkwall would benefit from a...ah, reduction in their numbers."

Wil stares at him for almost a full minute, mouth hanging open in disbelief.

"What my friend here is trying to _say_, messere," Varric jabs her hip with a discrete elbow. "We will try our hardest to find a solution to your current issue that satisfies both the needs of you, the entrepreneur, and the needs of your workforce. Regardless of country of origin, of course."

She feels another poke in her side.

"Yes! What my associate said!" she offers Hubert a false and toothy grin and he visibly recoils.

The deal settled, Hubert provides maps and two gold to cover supplies and then sends them on their way with a relieved chuckle, glad that he can finally stop being seen with the Lowtown thug and her awkward crew. Wil's tempted to vocalize how very repulsive she finds him, but she's certain it would not be welcome and the coin in her hand _is_. Anders had offered to create a small cache of potions for their longer, more dangerous, adventures and the gold would be able to cover supplies and his labor.

"It's days like to today that I'm actually grateful for Loghain Mac Tir," Wil is trying to forget the other Orlesian they'd met before their conversation with Hubert. Ghyslain, a man with a missing wife who rightly preferred the company of whores_,_ had been similarly repugnant.

"That name is supposed to mean something to us?" Fenris sounds curious _and_ bored- a remarkable feat.

"It would if you were Fereldan," Varric offers as explanation. "He's a national hero, or he was before the Blight."

"A _hero_," Fenris, unsurprisingly, has little patience or respect for heroes, judging by the way he spits the word out.

"If it weren't for him, Ferelden would probably still be part of the Orlesian empire," Wil stops to look back at the elf. "So I'd be even more of an ass and have a silly accent to boot. Never mind the whole crushing disdain for humanity thing that seems to be a hallmark of so many Orlesians that we meet."

The elf appears thoughtful, his head tilting slightly. "And what did it take for this man to fall from his pedestal?"

Wil wants to laugh in response, despite it being the most unfunny thing she can think of. "Ooooh, you know. Abandoned his son-in-law, who happened to be the king, on the battlefield to be killed by darkspawn, and then framed the Grey Wardens for the deed once he became regent. There's also rumors that he supported the murder, or attempted murder, of any nobility who could threaten his daughter's throne and allowed Tevinter slavers into the alienage to fund a civil war that _he_ started. The usual. On the other hand, the darkspawn probably loved him right up until he was beheaded. Made their job _easier_."

"I...see," despite the understatement, Fenris' eyes are widened with some amount of surprise. Wil supposes that he expected the tale of Loghain Mac Tir to be one heavy on the fickle nature of those who decide what a hero is.

"So does being a regicide and all those other things make what he did during the rebellion any less heroic?" Varric's looking at it from the perspective of one of his stories. "I've heard him called a former hero, but I think _fallen hero_ is the better term."

"Sure, why not? All I know is that I _might_ not be a refugee if it weren't for him, but I _know_ I'm not Orlesian because of him, so..." Wil shrugs, not in the mood to dwell on such things. "We need to get to the Bone Pit. If we can leave shortly after noon, we can make it before nightfall. Or we can wait until morning...we might be able to do it all in one day, but that depends on what's going on up there. Without more information, I think we'll have to plan on this being an overnight excursion."

"Overnight?" Fenris is dubious. "Do we have supplies for that?"

"We just need food and water, and maybe bedrolls. If Anders brings his pack, we should be set," Wil scratches her head. This is the first time she'd actually planned for something like this and she's pretty certain that Varric and Fenris aren't the best two for advising. "We can get everything at the bazaar, so we'll meet in a few hours at the Hanged Man. Do you know where that is, Fenris?"

He nods. "So the mage will be joining us? Pity."

Frustration edged in indignation flares in Wil's stomach. _Did you _really_ think he was going to give up his hatred so easily? It's literally burnt into him._

"If there are wounded miners, I'm certain they'll be in complete disagreement," she narrows her eyes at him. "And you might be, too, if you find yourself in need of healing. Or maybe I'll spare you the confusion and just let you bleed out. Now go back and get what you need. We don't have that much time."

Without waiting for a response, Wil and Varric leave the elf behind. Fenris watches them go, his expression one of conflicted scorn.

* * *

><p>"See, I never agreed to work with <em>him<em>," Anders is bent over an elderly man's leg, his hands moving with rhythmic deftness to stitch a three-inch gash along the inside of his calf. Wil holds the man's ankles in an effort to keep him still. When he jerks against her grasp the rough paper skin beneath her palms makes her own hands itch. "So that's _another_ mark against me going."

He finishes with a flourish, the thread neatly tied off and his small dagger coming out to clip the excess. After he nods to her, Wil relinquishes the man's legs and follows Anders back to his wash basin.

"I wouldn't ask you to go if I didn't think we needed you," she remembers Hubert's dismissive mentions of the refugees he'd hired and treated like disposable resources. "And the missing employees are Fereldan. If they're any still alive, you could be the difference between death and survival."

"_Survival_. So they can go back to working for a man who cares more about coin than cost of life? I think I'd rather die, Wil," a muscle in his jaw jumps as he scrubs at his hands. Then, his fingers coming out to grip at the edge of the basin, he leans forward to sigh. "Of course, there aren't many refugees in this city that have it any better. At least _he's_ willing to hire."

"And who knows? Perhaps having his operations saved by a pair of attractive Fereldans will make him think better of our countrymen!"

Anders chuckles, a warm and infrequent sound. "From the way you talk, it sounds like it would take more than being attractive to win this ass over."

Wil sees the opening in his defenses and she joins him against the basin, her face close to his.

"Well, I was going to say gorgeous beyond all imagining, but I didn't want you to think me conceited," her voice is far more flirtatious than she'd intended, but it's worth it to see the way his amber eyes brighten. "Or that you can get special treatment from _me_."

"On account of being gorgeous, you mean?" He goes upright, and the smirk that curves his lips is..._Maker_.

"Yes. _That_," Wil also stands, but takes a step back, stumbling a bit into the wall like she's not quite certain how to use her own legs anymore. Fortunately, Anders' attention has pulled elsewhere.

"Lirene!" he dries his hands before going to accept the box the older woman is holding. While she waits, Lirene fixes Wil with a look that's coolly appraising, even as her brow lifts in such a manner to indicate that she's not unimpressed to see Anders in relatively good spirits. "You've met Hawke, right?"

_Hawke? _

"Hawke?" Lirene's dark eyes gleam with recognition. "Yes, I can see it. Your father was Malcolm Hawke, wasn't he?"

"Pardon?" Wil's grown accustomed to people in Kirkwall knowing of the Amells, of cutting their eyes towards Bethany, who looks so much like Leandra, or not bothering to hide the fact that everyone in town thinks Gamlen is a waste. But there were people in Lothering, tiny, shithole _Lothering_, who wouldn't have been able to place Malcolm Hawke, and she certainly wasn't expecting anyone _here_ to see him in _her_. "Yes. He...did you know him?"

"Aye, and you. You were still young, though. It was when your family lived near Dragon's Peak. I remember your father gave Bann Sighard's boy his lessons. You'd tag along and sometimes come by my shop on your walk home. Malcolm was a good man. It's a shame what happened with that-" she stops in mid-sentence because Wil's eyes have gone automatically wide with _no more, no more. Please don't say another word._ Four years after his death and that old terror remains, that swell of blind panic that the wrong person will overhear and she won't be able to protect him when he needs her the most. "Did your family make it to Kirkwall?"

"Not all of us," Wil stares at the ground in front of her because Anders is watching her far too intently and it's making her painfully aware of all the ways this place is just _impossibly_ warm. "My brother was killed on our way out of Lothering and father...died. Four years ago. He fell ill one day, and was just...gone the next."

_So please don't ask about templars, or say the word templar. Or mage. Or Malcolm._

"Oh. Well, such is the way of these things," Lirene smiles. It's tight but her eyes burn with compassion and understanding as she looks between Wil and Anders. "That girl with you last week, she must be your sister. I never met her, but you always bought sweets for her and you brother," she looks up at Anders, probably because Wil is wilting under the memories _and_ his scrutiny. "If I recall correctly, your friend has a weakness for cherry tarts."

_Maker, take me now. To the Void, to the Deep Roads, to a world populated with nothing but Orlesian men. Just..._now_._

Realizing that Wil has been undone by something Lirene said, Anders dismisses the topic with an assured, "I'm going to be leaving in a few minutes and I might be gone for a couple of days. There's a mine near Kirkwall, most of the employees are refugees. The foreman has reason to believe that something's happened to the workers, and Hawke is going to investigate."

"I see," this displeases Lirene; she slips from congenial to cool. "I know of the mine, and the foreman. He's no friend to us Fereldans, Anders."

This is enough to bring Wil back."That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to help the workers, if there are any left alive." Frowning, Wil turns to Anders for support. "It's not just for _him_."

Lirene doesn't wait for Anders to agree, her hand going up. "I see. I'll keep the clinic staffed while you're gone. They can administer poultices and provide basic care in your absence."

"Good," it comes out hesitantly and he offers a conciliatory shrug. "And thank you for the supplies."

She's leaving before he's even uttered the _you_ in _thank you_, and Wil wishes she'd taken the opportunity to run, too.

"We're meeting at the Hanged Man. I have gold to cover anything you bring along," she begins inching towards the door. "I need to go, to tell some people who care that I might not be home for a few days."

He's not letting her get away that easily, and he's got his sad eyes on.

"What don't you want me to know?"

"So _many_ things," she bites back a barrage, starting with _my father was a mage_ and ending with _kiss your face off a few minutes ago_. And, even though she fully intended on keeping things on the smartass side, "I need to be careful. It's nothing personal."

He takes that _very_ personally. "You trust me to fight beside you, knowing what I'm capable of, but..." the scent of ozone caresses his words. "_Fine_. I'll see you at the tavern."

She feels like she should linger, make some show of being conflicted by what she's said or act like she truly wants to tell him the things he thinks she's hiding, but _he's_ already checking on the man with the stitches and _she's_ not that type of woman.

_No, you're the type to blow off the concerns of a lonely man to whom you offered friendship,_ Wil turns on her heel and practically runs out of the clinic, careful to keep her limbs from flailing. _You don't deserve for him to think better of you right now. What you _deserve_ are _all_ the sad eyes in the world._

* * *

><p>"Dragonsville," Wil tugs her sword from the corpse of yet another dragonling, doing her best to ignore the sickly sucking sounds as its innards chase up the wound left by her blade. "Dragonlingsville?"<p>

Varric is contorted beneath a set of rickety stairs that bridge the levels of the cavern. There's a small, water-damaged chest tucked there and he's trying his damndest to break into it. When he responds, his voice is muffled, "I still like Bonesville, Hawke."

"Of course you do," she's moved on to examine a skeleton strewn not far from where they'd been attacked. It's been stripped of its flesh and only scraps of tendon cling to the mottled ivory surface. All around the bones are insects that teem in the soil and run around but not over the skeleton itself. _How quickly can these things strip a grown man? Is this a new victim or an old one?_ Then, to purge the image of a corpse being devoured by the very creatures that swarm her boot, she continues, "But that's just begging for juvenile vandals to add an 'r' to every sign and map they find…heh."

"And you would never stoop so low, would you?" Varric emerges from his task with quite the haul. He shows Wil a collection of finely crafted rings. "The whole lot might get us a sovereign or two...and some might even be worth keeping."

"Hang onto them," Wil stretches and sighs. Her shoulder, the one injured months ago on the docks, is resisting her this evening. It had flared with pain before they'd even encountered the raiders camping outside of the mines and now that they had cut their way through dozens of dragonlings and a few healthy drakes, even breathing caused bolts of agony to shoot across her back and chest.

She'd considered asking Anders to look at it shortly after entering the cavern, but he was avoiding her. He'd hung back from the group on their way here, his shoulders held high to block the chill wind that whipped the feathers of his pauldrons against reddening cheeks. Every attempt she'd made to pull him into their conversations had been met with a wounded glare.

Even now he remains solitary, eyes dark and tormented. _Is he fighting with Justice? Is Justice doubting me again and trying to convince Anders that I'm using him?_ Something inside her turns. Am_ I using him?_

This last question is a hard one; she's struggled with it since the night after Karl, when she'd asked him to help Aveline stop the guard ambush. After the maps were in her hand, and despite his offers, he owed her nothing. And here she is, dragging him away from his clinic on a whim while not offering him anything more than surface. Nothing she'd shared, not even the story of the fox, could touch what she knew about him. The possession, the struggle, the loneliness...

"Let's rest here for a few minutes." Fenris and Varric are already seated on the steps and they shrug in unison, probably glad for the break.

Anders is partially hidden behind an outcropping of rock, his pack opened and the contents of it, poultices and bandages, spill across the stone next to him.

"So, you got anything in there for a two month old injury?" She hops up and settles near him. "Or something that makes apologies easier. That would be welcome, too."

Anders remains quiet for several long moments, one hand twisting in his feathers. Then he looks at her, a sideways glance and there's a surprising lack of anger in his eyes.

"You don't owe me an apology, Wil," he turns his gaze to the ground. "I overreacted...I keep forgetting that we've hardly met. I don't know what it is about you...maybe..." He trails off and his formerly fidgeting hand slides down to rest on his bicep. "You remind me of someone, the woman who conscripted me into the Wardens. We used to get into all kinds of trouble adventuring like this and...other things, too. Justice adored her...cared for her even, as much as a spirit can. Maybe even more than I did, because his feelings weren't as complicated. I think part of me expects you to be more like her, and part of him is angry that you're _not_ her."

He stops talking and it hangs between them. Wil is relieved and confused in equal measure- glad that he's no longer angry at her, but uncertain what to do with the subtext of what he's admitted. _Was this woman just a friend, or were they lovers? And if they were _lovers_, does that mean he's interested...No. Of course not._ Just as she squashes a deeply unwelcome flood of hope, the image of his smirk by the basin pops up and she's forced to fumble for _anything_ that can extinguish the fire that ignites south of her stomach. _Karl. He was with Karl. A mature, handsome, philosophical man. That's what he looks for. Not girls who cringe the moment someone starts being sincere or giggle over Bonersville. _Karl_. And his boner...sville._

"Andraste's tits," she shoves her hair back, her fingers shaky in her attempt to pull herself together. Then, realizing that he's staring at her, she puts forth something else, a query raised by his mention. "So tell me _why_ you joined with Justice, exactly. Not what he offered you...what you thought you could give _him_."

He's caught off guard, clearly this was _not_ what he expected. _That seems to happen a lot._

"I suppose I might have come off selfish the first time we talked about it, but," he smiles, a flicker across his lips. "I can't believe I just _told_ you like that, to be honest."

"I did ask. Also, I met a man this morning who told me his wife preferred elven whores to him. I think I _must_ look trustworthy. I can't see it, of course, but _I_ know what an egotistical sell-out I am."

This earns a laugh and he tilts his head towards her. "You look...something. Proud. Like, even if you disagreed with me, you'd be honest."

"Ha! Have I got _you_ fooled," Wil pulls her knees up and wraps her arms around them, to ease the steady ache in her shoulder. Without having to ask him, Anders places his hand over the precise place where the dagger had entered her and warm relief spills down and into her chest as he continues.

"I thought he deserved better than a corpse. He always felt he was desecrating Kristoff's body, spying on someone else's life through his memories. I figured a willing host would be better for him," he pauses and his fingers curl against the scraggly fur collar of her armor, his eyes growing soft. "He'd taught our friend how to call on Fade spirits to aid her in combat, and I thought it would be similar. Something I could turn on and off but...I was wrong. He's always there and I can't even stop him if he truly wants to control me."

His hand falls away from her and lands on the stone just behind her hip. She can feel, or perhaps sense it, and he's radiating so much hopeless, helpless anguish that the words that sit on the edge of her tongue, a mild condemnation that implies Justice may have tricked him into handing over his body, die before she can breathe them to life. He has enough regrets without her piling them on. So instead of saying what she should say, the honest thing, she lowers her legs and finds her feet. It breaks her free from the pocket of _him_ he'd established around her without her really noticing, and gives her room to say something that's not _quite_ a lie.

"You thought you were doing a good thing, Anders. You couldn't have known how it would turn out," she's glad that it sounds sincere, judging by the way his lips curve in gratitude. Glancing over to where Fenris and Varric have no doubt started putting down roots, she rolls her shoulder, testing the thoroughness of his healing. _Very_. "We should keep pushing. Our chances of finding anyone alive are pretty much nothing, but...I need to be certain. Even if I have to punch every bloody dragon in the Free Marches myself."

"Are we finally going?" Varric's stands upon her approach. "It's about time. I was getting sick of listening to the elf blabber on about his snow globe collection."

Wil smirks in disbelief, "You're a _snow globe_ collector?"

"No," Fenris sheaths his blade. "I collect nothing."

"Oh, I bet you collect enemies easily enough," Anders has joined them and seems to have completely shed his mood. "And _hearts_."

"Ok!" Wil skips forward, unwilling to let this escalate. "We're here to fight dragons, not each other. So...to fighting? Dragons?"

The men fall behind her as she leads them through a narrow passage that is blissfully dragon free. It's also surprisingly pretty, moonlight coming in through cracks in the cavern ceiling and illuminating the green lichen that coats the walls and floor. Ahead is a square doorway cut in the stone, framed by wood and metal. More light spills in through that and Wil uses it to navigate.

Then it goes dark.

"Hunh," Varric bumps into her. "Let's hope that it's the shadow of a hundred happy, healthy Fereldans."

"A hundred happy, healthy Fereldans wouldn't be so _quiet_," Wil frowns and draws her sword. The sound of footsteps echo down the chamber towards them. "But that seems to be-"

The man hurtles himself through the doorway with such speed that he very nearly impales himself on Wil's blade before he can stop. Only her whipping it to the side saves him as he slams bodily into her.

"Maker's breath, man," she pushes him back with her shoulder. "I almost had to pull you off of my sword!"

"Who-who-who," every _who_ is a exhalation; his entire chest heaves with the effort. "Who _are_ you?"

Anders' staff raises a glow to illuminate all of them.

The man's not terribly old. Maybe Wil's age or a year younger, with a shadowing of red fuzz on his smooth cheeks. His eyes are rimmed in black, exhaustion clear in the way they're bloodshot and watering. He's outfitted in simple farmclothes, and his wool breeches are scorched.

"What in the Maker's name has happened here?" Anders' hand stretches out to check for injuries on the man. Finding none, it falls to his side.

"We was mining, like you do," he's still nervous, but seems desperate to get this out. "And our team was attacked by these little dragons. Outta nowhere, they started picking off anyone who wandered away from the team until they grew bold enough to attack us all at once. We managed to get most to safety, to warn the others to evacuate the Pit. Some stayed to fight and some..." he lowers his eyes guiltily. "We _thought_ we would fight, but we was too scared once we got face to face with 'em. We hid instead. I'm the only one of us what survived."

"Well, fighting dragons isn't for everyone, I suppose," Wil can't believed they'd even _think_ about trying. "Especially if you've no weapons or armor. Tell me, where are the others- the ones who evacuated? Hubert hasn't heard a word from this place for over a week."

"Oh, I imagine they're hiding somewhere in Darktown, or in another cavern. Hubert would have our ears were we to show our faces around Kirkwall, no matter the reason."

"Of course," moving to the edge of the cavern, Wil indicates the passage out. "Get yourself to safety. Tell the others that I'll talk to Hubert for them so they can return to Kirkwall without...losing their ears. _Bastard_."

"That's...that's nice of you, ma'am," the man scratches at his scruff covered throat and casts one fearful look over his shoulder. "Um, I wouldn't go back out that way, were I you. There's a big, fucking dragon out there. Makes the ones in the caverns seem like kittens."

With that, he's tearing away from them into the darkness.

"Big, fucking dragons are my favorite kind," Wil hoists her sword to her shoulder and holds out her hand to stop Varric. "Don't _even_, Tethras."

"I wouldn't _dream_ of it, Hawke."

Within minutes and past a light filled antechamber, they clamber out of the caverns onto a wide ledge edged in dead grass and human bones. There's a collapsed tower of some sort, the supports embedded with human skulls and framed by femurs.

"How delightfully _macabre_," Wil mutters and it's lost in the ominous whoosh of wings and the screeching roar of a...well, the man wasn't a liar in _this_ at least. The dragon that lands less than twenty feet away _is_ quite large, and sadly proportional when it came to things such as teeth and claws and-

"Anders, you and Varric stay as close to the cavern as possible," Wil cuts her eyes to Fenris, who is already glowing blue along his tattoos. "You stay in front, confusing her, and I'll attack from the rear. If I can get access to the not scaly bits, I might be able to do more damage."

There is no verbal agreement, only preparation. Varric unfolds Bianca and loads her with remarkable speed, Anders' staff is crackling, lightning running its length, and Fenris mirrors her own tense and readied posture.

With a roar that splits the air around them, the dragon signals their attack. Wil flings herself to the left while Fenris dives into the space directly below the creature's already thrashing head, his sword making the first mark at the base of her throat, even though the blade barely breeches the glittering purple skin.

Wil has better success, once she's found footing at the dragon's side. She thrusts her sword up, and it plunges into a place with more give than the spot Fenris has hit. Blood gushes out, a river of dark violet that splashes across her hands before she can pull her weapon free. All around her, electricity catches the air and the dragon twitches angrily in response, one claw lunging out towards Fenris who skitters awkwardly but manages to escape. Pulling back, though, its horned elbow knocks into Wil and she staggers sideways into the beast's rear haunches, her blood slicked hand going out for support and sliding easily off to send her sprawling to her back.

For a moment, her head slamming against the stone ground beneath her, Wil has no idea what could be happening. All she sees is steel grey clouds speeding across a blackening sky and all she feels is _ouch_. Then the dragon shifts above her, in response to a spell or an arrow, and consumes her vision with its bulk. With the enemy in sight, she mmediately knows what she's doing, or _supposed_ to be doing.

_Fighting_. Her hand searches for her dropped sword, fingers finding it and closing around the hilt with the certainty of her fourteen years of training. It's hard to get leverage from this position, but the dragon is holding itself over her and she has a clear shot at its soft underside that she'd be foolish not to take.

Pushing herself into a crouched position, mindful of the way the world spins around her when she moves too quickly, she holds the hilt between her knees, her eyes never leaving the creature. Suddenly aware of its powerful hind legs on her left, she quickly formulates an exit. She'll stab up and then, keeping her grip, pull out and roll back. It's a variation on a move that used to infuriate Carver because he was never flexible enough to make it work without ending up awkwardly splayed and vulnerable to attack.

_Enough thinking, just _do_ it already._ She draws a deep breath and then, with a forceful exhalation, she drives upward with her legs so that the sword is driven hilt deep into the dragon's stomach. Shifting momentum, she tugs back and it begins to slide out with remarkable ease.

Or it does until the _asshole_ decides to address what's caused the massive wound in her side, twisting violently towards Wil and lifting its front legs from the ground.

Wil's death grip on her sword becomes a liability as it's pulled up and away from her and then suddenly comes back down when the dragon returns to all fours, knocking her off balance to fall directly beneath the flow of blood that's already soaked both her arms, and now pours hot across her face, her throat and her chest.

_I have to get out of here_, she hears Fenris shout in the distance, trying to get the dragon's attention. She relinquishes the blade, and tries to scramble to safety, but she's frantic with fear that makes her palms slide uselessly across the blood-slicked stone. It's too late anyway; the dragon knows she's the one responsible and the last thing she sees before blackness is the inside of its cavernous, tooth-lined maw descending upon her like the Void itself.

* * *

><p>Fenris is exhausted, but does not care. He buries his feet into the sand that edges the bedroll upon which he sits, trying not to think on the content of the silvery white substance.<p>

_Bones, probably._

His mind is always too eager to supply these things.

Despite the fire that burns nearby, there is little warmth in this place, and less offered by his armor. He can activate his markings for a temporary reprieve, but it hurts more than the cold to do so and would only increase the fatigue that has settled into his bones and muscles.

_How did you end up here?_ The wind ruffles his hair, the motion a ghost at the edges of his vision. _Why don't you start back to Kirkwall? Get away from the mage with his..._

"Fenris?" It's less his name than the whispered suggestion of his name, and he twists his neck to look behind him, disbelief widening his eyes when he sees that Hawke is struggling to sit upright, her expression determinedly pained.

"That's unadvisable," he holds up one hand as if to halt her but she's already stopped herself, her eyes staring down in horror as the blanket falls away to reveal that she's naked, save for blood-stained bandages that have been wound around most of her torso and looped to secure her right shoulder and arm.

"_Oh_," she wavers, looking near collapse. "I suppose it needed to be done."

"It did," Fenris remembers the brief argument. The mage had been resolute in his insistence. There was too much blood, too many gaps in her armor and too many indistinct pain signatures for him to know where exactly she needed healing. To his credit, he'd managed to disrobe her quickly and discreetly, keeping her covered as long as he could.

Hawke's jaw is moving, stretching as if it's been awhile. "Why is my skin stiff?" One shaky hand touches her short hair, blackened and shoved away from her face. "And my hair?"

"It's blood."

"Dragon's blood? Or..._Hawke_ blood?"

"Dragon's. You were covered in it. Nothing short of a trip to the coast to hold you under would have removed it all. The mage managed to clean most of it off of your face and...chest, but we only had so much water to spare."

"No, I understand. It's just," she collapses to her side and groans. That would be from the broken ribs, the only major injury the mage could find once the blood had been cleared and her vitals checked. "What happened?"

Fenris shrugs, not to be uncaring or dismissive, but because he doesn't really _know_ what happened.

"After you stabbed it and fell over, we saw it go to attack you. But it stopped short. Either it thought you were dead or...like it," the mage had been _peculiar_ on this point, but Fenris had not thought to press. "The worst of it came when the dragon kicked you aside; that's probably when your ribs got broken."

Hawke nods slowly, her expression guarded in the firelight.

"I must have passed out in _fear_," her eyes roll upward. "_Heroic_."

"Understandable," Fenris lowers his chin in admiration. "I don't think any of us would have been able to get up after the first time it knocked you down. If you hadn't stabbed it, we'd all be dead...or halfway to Kirkwall with you still up on that ledge, waiting to become dinner."

"A cheery thought," she frowns. "So you're all ok?"

"Yes." His eyes go to the figures beyond her. The mage is closest, his back to the both of them. Varric is beyond, wrapped tight and tucked in with Bianca. "In a manner of speaking. Did you know your mage is not human?"

The sigh that escapes her lips is the only answer he needs.

"You are a _fool_," he sneers into the darkness between them. "Disappointing."

"I wasn't trying to impress you, Fenris."

It comes out cold, and he's surprised by how it stings.

"Of course not. You blindly accept an abomination, yet I had to promise not to hurt his _feelings_," he looks away, his focus turning to the dying fire at the center of the abandoned camp near the Bone Pit entrance. "How can you let a monster like him walk amongst innocents and fight beside people you know and claim to care about?"

For a second there is only silence. Then, as quiet as truth, "He made a good first impression."

Fenris snorts, hoping that it was meant to come across as a humorous understatement. Then he cannot help but think of the impression _he_ might have made, calmly descending stairs covered by the blood of his victim only to tear the heart out of another. He remembers her defense of the mage _a Grey Warden and a healer_. If the first thing she'd ever seen him do was save the life of a refugee, then Fenris could almost understand.

_Almost_. As much as he could understand anything that had to do with magic and those who did not seem to grasp its horrible potential to hurt, to maim, to _poison_.

"Do you not fear what he could do to you? Or your family?" Fenris twists to look at her and it's evident from her expression that this question has not gone without consideration.

"I don't fear for myself, and I know that he...no. I have my concerns about his stability in certain situations, but not those," her voice is growing weak with strain, and blinking seems to be taking more and more effort. "Can we talk about something else now?"

"You should get more rest; I don't think any of us will be up to the task of carrying you to Kirkwall," he thinks back to their journey through the caverns, and how _he'd_ ended up holding her the longest, on his back with her hands secured in front of him. He'd wanted to treat her as any other burden, but his mind had allowed him to dwell unnecessarily on the sensation of her breath steady against his neck and how the heat of her passed too easily through her breeches and the cloak she'd been wrapped in and his own armor.

It did not hurt.

He wishes that it had.

She yawns and presses her cheek against the bedroll. Then, "Maybe something having to do with blood? Blood's Landing, or Bloodington."

His eyes fall shut and he exhales in amusement. The stupid game she and the dwarf had played on their way through the caves.

"I thought of one. Death's Breath Cavern," he shifts back to look over the fire.

"Niiiiice," the word drags out forever; she might as well have fallen asleep halfway through. "But it might be one of those things that only sound good when _you_ say it."

Silence ensues. Minutes later, he hears her snore.

Fenris is exhausted, but does not care. He listens to her breathing as it deepens, trying not to think about what, or who, she might see in her dreams.

_The mage, probably._

His mind is always too eager to supply these things.


	9. Dammit

He arrives to an evening already in progress.

He'd half-expected, or rather fully hoped, to find them tucked away in Varric's quarters. Instead they're in the center of a crowded room, people he knows and doesn't know piled around a table that's already littered with empty mugs, half-filled bottles of wine, playing cards and trinkets won.

Justice balks. He'd resisted every step Anders had taken to bring himself here. _We have too much work to_ _do_ had been a familiar refrain, along with his old favorite _you cannot trust them_ and a generalized sense of revulsion for all the excess that would be on display and running rampant.

"You enjoyed this once," Anders murmurs as Justice squirms in his thoughts and they're both forced into another night in another life and how a ruddy dwarf had turned the Warden's table at the Brother and Sisters Inn into his own stage as he told the tale of Future King Alistair the Embarrassingly Naked Too Much of the Time. There were catcalls from a normally serious dark-haired man for the dwarf himself to get embarrassingly naked, and the woman sitting in between Anders and Justice that evening had choked on her ale at the idea, amused and disgusted at the thought of her comrade in the altogether. Not that _she_ hadn't seen it a dozen times before, but the other patrons might not be emotionally prepared for the shock.

But Varric is not Oghren, and Wil is not...

"Anders," she mouths it and waves from her perch on the edge of a stool that is otherwise consumed by Isabela's not insubstantial backside. As if realizing the battle is loss, she relinquishes the last few inches to weave through the full tables that separate him from her and that's when he realizes that, while not exposing acres of flesh the way Isabela does, her blouse isn't particularly...obscuring. He tries to forget what he's seen of her as a healer but, when she's close enough, he notices again the freckles smattered across her chest, in a pattern like wings spread just below her clavicle.

_You are wasting your time, Anders._

_Maybe_, but Wil has fought her way to him and she smiles as if she's truly glad to see him. He smiles back, then feels his nose wrinkle as he admits this:

"I'm not exactly comfortable in big groups," his eyes slide to the crowded table. Everyone around it is laughing except for Aveline, who is dropping coins into Isabela's greedily outstretched palm.

"Give her a few hours, and she'll be tucking those coins into Bela's corset!" Wil turns back to him, eyes bright with the promise of _that_, but then her head shakes. "No...she won't. She'd die from alcohol poisoning before she got _that_ far. So-" popping up on tiptoes, she searches above the crowd and then drops down with her assessment. "There's a table near the stairs that seems empty. We could sit there, if you want. We'll be close enough to see Isabela cheating, but too far to hear her getting cursed for it."

Surprise tugs his brows upwards. "But this is for Aveline! Don't you want to be with your friends tonight?"

Before she can respond they are separated by a drunk that jostles between them, leaving Anders with the impression of rank whiskey and a toothless leer. Beyond that horror, Wil stands up a little taller and her eyes, painted greener for the occasion, widen in surprise.

"That pervy old bastard just palmed my ass!" She points as if there might be any confusion about _which_ ass she means. "Not acceptable, pervy old bastard!"

He doesn't turn around.

"I could shoot him with lightning?" Anders holds up a single finger and aims it at the man's swaying back. "Or I can go over, get his name for you and see if he's keeping a room here."

"Definitely not the first," she motions his hand down. "And I don't know...I like my men with teeth. Not all of them, necessarily. But a plural amount is my _baseline_."

"I once met a sailor who preferred _toothless_," _are you really telling her this Anders? _Wil's lips are stretching in a delighted, and knowing, grin. "Granted, I'm not certain the appeal would be the same for a woman."

"No, it _wouldn't_," still laughing, she indicates the bar. "Throw another ale and whatever else you want on my tab and I'll grab that table for us."

She's gone before he can make an argument for not staying and he heads to the bar with a grin that fades when the exhausted barkeep snaps for an order that Justice doesn't want him to place.

_Alcohol impairs your judgment, impulse control...control over your _magic_._

They're all very good reasons for not ordering a whiskey or an ale, but there _are_ some compelling ones, too. _Like having fun, or allowing myself to _think_ about having fun. _But what fun could he have, really? He has nothing to gamble, the tales he feels comfortable telling aren't remotely interesting and alcohol had a terrible way of making him willing _more willing_ to hump anything that would hold still long enough to allow it, and he does _not_ need to add any more pressure to himself.

As it is, tendrils of something he'd thought lost to Ferelden are already twining their way around him in places he'd been attempting to will dead since first merging with Justice. Even when there was a chance that Karl might be freed, he'd not allowed himself the luxury of imagining what it would be like _now_. How would Justice respond to his lover's touch? Would his revulsion taint pleasure felt or given? Would he attempt to seize control just as Anders briefly lost his own?

There were too many questions, too many risks. It extended, even, to his own small room at the back of the clinic, when alone and acting only to squelch a purely physical yearning. He did not allow himself to give in to fantasy, or to dwell upon past assignations. It was his hand and his cock, the wall or the ceiling or unyielding blackness, and a quick, joyless release.

_And that's how it has to remain. _He orders an ale and a cider and presses his palms into the rough wooden counter in front of him. _Dispassionate and alone._

Wil hadn't yet made it to the table when he finally secures their drinks, so he takes it on his own. She appears to be arguing with Isabela, but with exaggerated facial expressions rather than words. Wil ends it with an imaginary dagger drawn across her throat, and Isabela relents, albeit grumpily. That's when Anders notices an unfamiliar face at the table.

She's young, pretty verging on beautiful, but there's something desperate and frightened in her amber eyes that strikes him like sorrow. So he focuses on the curves of her peach cheeks and how inky black her hair is, purer even than Isabela's with her Rivaini blood. He also watches as she stares after Wil, averting her eyes before they can fall on him.

"Marking your territory?" The girl brings her hand to her face, pale fingers curled against her chin and she's observing Isabela out of the corners of her eyes, intimidation and curiosity showing in the way they gleam, and the way her ebony brows move above them. "Something tells me Isabela doesn't play fair."

Wil settles next to him and he's suddenly extremely grateful that the beverage in his tankard contains no alcohol as his eyes are drawn, once again, to the freckles along her neckline.

"No, nothing like that," she scowls into her ale and then runs a single finger along the edge of the mug, catching errant foam which she then wipes onto her dark trousers. "Just saving myself some trouble down the road. Oh, that _wench_."

Anders follows her glare to see Isabela raising her cup to the table, and the girl has her own beverage aloft. "Wait, is that your sister?"

"Yes," she follows with a drink, nervousness implied in the tremor of her hand. "Bethany. I was hoping she'd join us, but she's never really..." The halt in her speech is her own, and Anders can see that she's unhappy with what she's admitted. "She's having fun. I just wish it didn't come with a side of a busty, brazen pirate."

"You forgot _handsy_."

"I _never_ forget handsy," her chin drops in momentary resignation and Anders decides that a change in subject would probably welcome.

"How are you feeling?" The few times he'd seen her since they'd returned from the Bone Pit had been perfunctory. Once to secure a few poultices and have him examine the progress, the other two more social calls, either to say hello or to invite him to Aveline's delayed celebration. "You're moving better."

"_Am_ I?" She looks at him through her dark eyelashes, a mockery of coquettishness, before giving him a more genuine smirk. "The stiffness is gone, and there was never much pain after that night, so...yes. Better seems to be the consensus."

"Good," he sips his cider, not really tasting it at all because he's remembering with unwelcome clarity the sight of her disappearing beneath the dragon, of her body crumpled and shoved aside and there was nothing he could do to help her until the beast was dead. Vengeance had come out after that, called forth by Anders' own panic, and it wasn't the most pleasant surprise to know _that_ could happen. He'd thought only templars would set him off, but...

_Even more reason to keep your distance._

Anders shoves back and returns to the present. It's been too long since he's been out like this, in a room full of revelry with a pretty girl beside him, watching him with bright eyes and a ready smile even though he's not really giving her much to smile about.

"So why don't you want to play cards?"

Her expression says _Don't get me started_ before her mouth even opens. "Oh, I do. It's just...Varric won't let me play Diamondback. Or rather, he won't tell me the _rules_. He says I need a flaw."

Anders responds with a single raised eyebrow.

"It's a hero thing?" She slips into a passable impersonation of Varric, "That's just how it works, Hawke...if a hero doesn't have a flaw, then people can't identify with them. Your flaw is that you're a horrible gambler. Aaaand your _mouth_. But people think I'm making _those _stories up."

Anders smirks his agreement on the subject of her mouth. "So what's _his_ flaw?"

Still imitating Varric, this time her fingers toying with what he assumes is phantom chest hair, "Hawke. _Please_."

"So does that mean he's perfect, or does that mean he's not the hero?"

"Exactly! And I don't even know why he needs to tell stories, anyway, much less why I need to be the _hero_ of them." Wil sighs dramatically. "All I know is that it means _tonight_, I'm stuck talking to you. And the drinks are on me, so you better be interesting."

A spark in her eye undoes any damage dealt by _stuck_. Anders tilts his head thoughtfully.

"I suppose I _could_ give you a detailed description of the ear I re-attached this morning, or how I pulled a three inch long metal spike from a sailor's ass this evening," he helpfully pantomimes the latter.

"Hmmm, maybe we could move in a less...grisly direction. I'm not drunk enough to revel in the misfortune of others. Yet. But give me enough of this swill, and I will find the idea of a spiky assed pirate hilarious _and_ fascinating," her mug goes into the air and she swallows a final mouthful for emphasis. It comes away and there are still drops of ale glistening on her pink lips that she catches with an unceremonious swipe of her sleeve just as he considers doing it himself.

"I suppose we cou-"

"I WIN! Suck it, _dwarf_!" This triumphant announcement comes courtesy of Bethany, who is standing victorious in her chair, arms raised to the ceiling and everyone in the tavern is staring, some clearly annoyed, but none are as furious as Wil.

"_Isabela_!" She's at the other table in three long strides. "How much has she had to drink?"

"Only four shots," Varric is pushing a pile of coins towards Bethany's empty spot at the table. "I've been keeping tabs."

"Wellll," Isabela looks to Wil's left and, when Wil's gaze follows, the pirate leaps onto the table, sending mugs and cards flying as she scrambles down the length of it only to be stopped by a wall of glowering Aveline. "_Balls_. Fine. They were _technically_ double shots. She told me she's never done this before and I...just wanted to make the evening memorable."

"Make it memorable by killing her or, at the very least, making sure she can't remember anything?" Aveline defers to Wil. "Can I punch her, Hawke? Please?"

Wil's preoccupied with getting her sister down now that the rush of drunken merriment is passed and she's just swaying unsteadily atop a wooden chair that's probably not a stable thing under the _best_ of circumstances. After a few failed attempts to hold Bethany's arms steady while she steps down, Wil just grabs her legs and lowers her .

_Probably not the best thing for someone with recently broken ribs to be doing._

"Let her go, Aveline," Wil's head whips around and, although she glares at Isabela's back, she seems more concerned than angry. "We're leaving. Obviously."

"But..._Mina_!" Bethany begins toying her hands at her stomach, and Anders sees her lower lip push out slightly. "I was _winning_."

Wil, still looking towards Isabela, closes her eyes and her face becomes an ode to regret and exhaustion.

"I'm sorry, Beth," he can only see her lips moving and then she turns to face her sister. Whatever she says, it results in Bethany gathering up the pile of silver at her seat, Wil pocketing a few more left at Isabela's abandoned spot. "Do you have everything?"

Bethany nods, then stumbles forward as if the world is tilting beneath her feet and only she can feel it. Catching her easily, Wil turns around and urges her up onto her back, skinny arms tight around Wil's shoulders.

"So this was a nice little party, right?" Wil's arms are looped beneath Bethany's knees and she scuffles them over to Aveline. "I'm sorry that it was delayed by, uh, certain unfortunate events."

What she doesn't specify is that said certain unfortunate events involved the slew of Tevinter slavers they'd killed in the alienage. The elves, convinced that the slavers were coming to steal them all in the night, threatened to riot if the guard didn't do something which, of course, turned out to be Aveline and three other recruits taking extended night patrols for the next five evenings.

"Right," Aveline rubs her hand along her neck and sighs. "I can walk you home, if you want."

Wil opens her mouth to respond, but Anders is on his feet and interfering before she can get anything out.

"Actually...I will. There's something I needed to discuss with Wil, anyway," he glances over at her, uncertain whether she'll accept his offer. It's not the first time he's tried and she'd consistently refused. Tonight, though, she gives a tight nod and he escorts her, and her sister, out into a cool, clear night.

For a few minutes, they walk in silence, Bethany on her own feet with Wil's arm slung around her shoulder to keep her steady. Once they're a safe distance from the Hanged Man, Wil staggers into an alcove so that they can talk out of anyone's sight.

"I'm sorry, Mina," Bethany sounds as if she means it, although her speech is slurred. "I didn't mean to-" She stops talking when she sees Anders, almost as if she hadn't noticed him walking with them since before they left the tavern. Then, her voice harsh and cold, "I don't know if I _care_ for you."

"Bethany Hawke!" Wil's eyes widen in shock, but her tone remains light. "I never pegged you as a _mean_ drunk."

Anders hangs back from Bethany, but he catches Wil's attention and pantomimes casting a spell. "To make her less _drunk_," he mouths and, after a moment's consideration, Wil nods her approval.

It falls apart because he forgets that Bethany is not Wil, with whom he's been fighting and healing for over two weeks. _She_ doesn't expect the spell he casts from behind and, in retaliation, she wheels around, hand up and he's hit square in the chest by a flash of violet that knocks him off his feet, landing a few feet away.

_What?_ He's on his back and his head falls against pavement so that the sky spreads above, velvet black with subtle hints of blue. Lungs aching, it's difficult for him to breathe and he tries to calm himself by assessing the possible damage. Mostly, from what he can tell, it's just pain. Spirit damage could do that- not actually _harm_ a person, just make them hurt like they'd just been booted from a cliff. _A debilitating spell rather than a fatal one. _That Bethany would choose _that_, even while drunk and taken by surprise, speaks highly of her training.

"Anders!" Wil is there beside him, kneeling and pulling at his jacket to see if he's been hurt. "I can't actually do anything," she admits with a mortified laugh. "But it's nice to know, at the very least."

He nods, silent. Justice is roaring inside of him, rioting in a wordless fury. From what Anders can tell, Justice thinks Wil set him up...or something. While Anders is putting together all the pieces he's gathered from her since they met, fitting it into this new realization and coming up with a clearer picture of Wil Hawke, Justice is arriving at the definitive conclusion that she is nothing more than a woman shaped snare, a templar's trap with disheveled hair and freckles across rosy brown cheeks.

_"I need to be careful. It's nothing personal."_

"Can you help me up?" He asks, desperate to quell the roiling in his head. However, when she moves to support him, he realizes that she should _definitely_ not be straining herself any more this evening. "On second thought, I'll let the woman who was recently _kicked by a_ _dragon_ rest."

He manages to get pull himself up into a seated position, but he still needs to gather his thoughts and wait a few minutes before standing. The ache in his chest is resistant to his own healing and he's rather enjoying the way Wil remains crouched next to him, her hand stretched to the ground for balance. She's studying him, her mouth twisted in consideration and her expression distant.

"Hey!" her tone is absolute casual as she shakes the strand of hair that's _always_ in her eyes out of her eyes. "So, funny story. My sister's an _apostate_. By the way."

Running his fingers along the edge of his jacket, the tips grazing just over the place where Bethany's spell had hit him the hardest, Anders does not respond. He knows what she's trying to do. It's what she's been doing since the moment she met him, covering for awkwardness or emotion with her little quips, sarcasm and self-deprecation. _Just like _I_ used to do…before._ This realization is uncomfortable, because Justice has taught him how dangerous holding certain things at a distance could be, and he can't help but wonder if Wil is the same way- if she has deeply held rage or sadness that she keeps in check by being relentlessly…_her_.

"I hadn't noticed," he pulls his knees up so he can lean against them as he considers what to say next, or whether he should say _anything_. Wil is looking around, suddenly incredibly alert as she stands and begins prowling towards the alley.

"Bethany?" It's stern with a trace of panic. Then again, with more desperation, "_Bethany!_"

She stands still, silence greeting her and not a pretty young woman with dark hair and sad eyes. Then, echoing towards them between buildings, is a shriek that sends Wil flying into darkness, the white blur of her blouse disappearing beyond a corner before Anders can stagger to his feet to follow. By the time he gets there, she is out of sight again. He continues along a narrow corridor, pausing at doorways, gates and offshoots listening carefully to-

A scream tears the air, something primal that breaks near the end. He wheels around, uncertain where it came from or which crooked alley he should take.

_It is a trap._

The thought comes with the feeling of everything _Anders_ growing distant as Justice asserts himself and "_NO!_ I will not allow it! Not when-"

There's another cry, and _Anders_ whips his head towards the direction from which it seems to have originated. There's a steep set of limestone stairs. Near the top he can see a pale blue banner stretched between two buildings and he remembers Wil telling him about the square in front of their tenement and how on hot days people would gather in the puddles of shade cast by such banners and awnings, migrating with them as the sun passed through the sky.

He sprints up the steps, trying to take them two at a time only to stumble hard halfway up, his hand scraping across the rough surface leaving behind a mess of torn skin, exposed flesh and grit that was surprisingly painful. As he recollected himself, he heard the familiar sound of plate mail crashing against stone and then violent _retching_. _Fuck_, he scrambles to his feet, his palm wiping across his exposed tunic. _Fuckfuckfuck_.

Managing to make it up the remaining steps without incident, he's greeted by a site that both enrages and pacifies Justice- Bethany is crumpled on the ground, eyes closed and crimson trickling from a gash on her forehead. Wil is kneeling next to the body of a guardsman, a thoroughly _dead_ guardsman, and it's _her_ retching that he heard.

"Wil," he doesn't know which one to go to first, although he has a very clear preference...

"Help Beth," she coughs it out, and then her forehead is pressed to the ground, her arms tight around her midsection and he can see a gaping red hole in her blouse.

"_Wil_," he pleads but knows it's a waste of time. Falling beside Bethany, he immediately takes her chin in his hand to angle her head up for a better view of her injury which he's assuming was caused by the pommel of the guardsman's longsword. She's fortunate in that it struck away from her temple; her skull would probably cracked otherwise. As is, it's merely nasty but not fatal. He closes his eyes and summons just enough healing magic to help staunch the flow of blood. This is a public place; the last thing any of them needs is to draw more unwanted attention.

As if she can read his thoughts, Wil surfaces from her suffering long enough to get to her feet, although it takes her a few minutes longer to transition from doubled over to standing upright, scarlet drops running down from her stomach, along her straining throat, and off of her chin. They splatter bright against the white stone in a morbid constellation at her feet and, when the spasms have passed, she continues staring at it, her hand running up her neck to wipe at the remaining tracks.

"We need to get Beth inside," her voice is rough. "And I need to do something with him. People will be watching...if anyone comes out now, I might not get a chance to explain," she chokes and looks _towards_ the guard but not _at_ him. She draws a sharp breath, "Aveline will never forgive me for this."

"The _Captain_ doesn't have to know," Anders begins to ease Bethany up, catching her under her armpits and getting her upper half off of the ground. She's light, but he doubts he can get her up any stairs on his own. "I can burn the body, hide his armor."

"No," Wil's adamant. "I'm giving Aveline a body _and_ an explanation."

"You could be _executed_," his heart begins to race and he opens his mouth to argue, but stops when he sees the expression on her face. It's guilt, revulsion and confusion.

"Maybe I deserve to be," she turns her back on the guard and goes to Bethany, pulling her up with surprising ease and, with Anders' aid, getting her positioned in her arms. "Two flights up- the door with the horseshoe on it. I'll leave it unlocked. Just get him behind some crates or something. If you can't find a cover..."

He nods his understanding, and watches as she carefully maneuvers up the half-flight of stairs to the tenement door, and then somehow manages to let herself in without dropping her sister or cracking her head against the doorframe.

Only when they're swallowed by the building does he turn to the guardsman, his healer's eyes searching for any sign of injury, trauma or..._anything_ that will reassure him that he's crazy to even be thinking what he's thinking. _It's impossible._ But there was so much blood on her at the Bone Pit; she'd been soaked in it, slept in it and wore it all the way to Kirkwall. There's every chance that...

_"Hey! Anders!" She stops her looting long enough to wave him over, a wide smile on a face that was meant to always be smiling and he's never happier than he is when it's directed at _him_. "I have something _awesome_ I want to show you."_

_"Awesome or _gross_?" He joins his commander, and crouches near the wolf corpse. He's startled at how easy it is to be around them now. He's reached the point where he's seen so much death that only humans really register anymore and then it's only if their helmets are off. "You seem to have a difficult time telling the difference."_

_She elbows him and bites her lip in amusement. He elbows back and knocks her slightly off balance, her hand going out to grab his knee so that she doesn't go over. It stays, the pressure gentle but resolute, and she shows him her other hand, her elegant fingers scarred by a hundred tiny blade nicks and the back marred by a fresh cut that stretches from her middle finger to her thumb. Blood oozes out, even though it's been recently wiped clean, and she positions it over the wolf. _

_"Watch," she commands him, as if he could ever stop, and closes her eyes in anticipation, her hand trembling just above the wolf's still warm and matted fur. Then, without warning, the wound begins to close, the white of her skin coming back together from the ends and with nothing more than-_

_"How are you doing that," he grabs her hand, runs his thumb over the nearly healed wound and then catches a glimpse of her face. Smug. "You're not a mage. Oh...oh! This is that thing that you _insist_ isn't blood magic, isn't it? Andraste's flaming knickers, did you just _eat_ his _soul_?"_

_It offends her, but not enough to pull away from him. "Not his soul, just a lingering lifeforce. I would never use it against a living creature. Or even a dead human."_

_"Well don't use _anything_. You have a healer now. An _amazing_ healer, I might add." Somewhere nearby Oghren is crashing through underbrush towards them and he lowers his voice to a suggestive purr. "Handsome, too."_

_"Hmmm," she stands and stalks off, not wanting to be caught in anything resembling a compromising position. He watches her go, the sway of her hips mesmerizing, and then returns to the wolf to poke it. It's already gone stiff and is noticeably colder than it had been not minutes before. "_Gross_."_

Anders kneels and touches the guard's smooth cheek. _He's so young_. His flesh is frigid and there is no give when there should be _all_ the give.

"_Dammit_, Wil," he covers his mouth, trying to think things through even as something inside of him goes ragged with sympathy.

_She's dangerous._

"_I'm_ dangerous," Anders grabs the guard's shoulders and begins to drag him back towards a shadowed gutter in front of the building adjacent to Wil's. There are three barrels lined up in front of a rusted metal grate, and, after no small amount of grunting and rearranging limbs, he manages to get the guard tucked in and out of sight. "_She_ doesn't know what she's doing."

_Dangerous_

Justice flares in him, and Anders _cannot_ deal with this, on top of everything else. _Dammit, Wil._ He lets himself into her building, and then struggles up the rickety steps to her floor. It's dark here, the light coming through the vent shafts along the outside wall is too weak and the torches between doors flicker too dimly. He allows his hand to glow with fire until he finds the horseshoe she'd mentioned.

He waves the flame out, and lets himself into a cramped, but clean, apartment. The wood-hewn furniture is pushed against not quite straight walls to allow for clear passage to the outer rooms, but what little floorspace remains is taken up by Bello, who glares up at Anders _this is _your_ fault, somehow_ but makes no other move, aggressive or otherwise.

"Get out of his way, Bello," Wil's voice is muffled by the door between her and them, but Bello hears her well enough. Rolling onto his belly, eyes never leaving Anders' face, the dog begrudgingly finds his feet and trundles backwards until his rump hits the far wall.

Anders allows himself into what he assumes is Wil and Bethany's bedroom and _dammit, Wil_. She's gotten Bethany comfortably settled in a cot and has pulled a table and chair up to the bed. The table, a crate turned sideways to suit the purpose, is already supplied with the things that Anders will need to take care of Bethany. She moves out of his way immediately, her hand going to cover the bloodstain on her shirt before she just crouches down at Bethany's feet, crossing her arms on the end of the cot in front of her and resting her chin on them.

"You're next, Wil," he inches the stool closer to Bethany, and takes an uneasy seat. Having already examined her, he's able to work quickly enough with what Wil has provided. There are three damp rags- one to freeze and then place at the rapidly forming knot along the back of her crown, one to clean the gash on her forehead and a spare for whatever purpose he sees fits. She'd also left out poultices, a vial of clear liquid he'd given her the week before to help with the cuts from the fallen glass shelving, and a pair of tweezers.

"I'm fine," she's not fine, by the quiver in her voice. "Why is she still unconscious? _Bleargh_."

She squeezes Bethany's toes through the covers and frowns.

"_She's_ fine," Anders runs his hand along the back of her head, feeling no more bumps or blood. Her eyes begin to strain open. "She's just concussed…and _drunk_."

"Drunk?" The voice comes from behind him, and Anders doesn't need to turn around to guess that it's Wil's mother. And she's _not_ happy. "Wilhel_mina_! Why would you let her do such a thing?"

Anders expects Wil to smart off, to talk about Isabela's trick or Bethany's own will as a person. Instead she continues staring at Bethany's feet, guilt twisting her features.

"She was having fun…I thought I'd let her, for once" then her head tilts in admission, looking as if she wants the sky to open up and devour her whole. "And I…got distracted."

_Was she distracted by _me_?_ The growing air of familial awkwardness disappears in the face of that possibility, although Wil's mother isn't going to let _her_ off as easily.

"_Distracted_?" As if it was the worst thing a person could be. "What if it had been a templar and not a guard? I should have never let her go. It's been nice, not worrying these past few weeks…"

"You wouldn't have to worry about her in the Circle, either. It doesn't make it better!" _This_ is the tipping point as Wil pushes herself up off the bed to fight but her mother gasps instead.

"Maker's _breath_, Wilhelmina! You're bleeding!" The eldest Hawke comes into view to get a closer look at her daughter and Anders shouldn't be surprised that she's lovely, like a softer version of Bethany with steel colored hair.

"I'm. _Fine_."

"She's _not_ fine," Anders is done with Bethany, who is now awake and staring at him in the _most_ disconcerting way.

"Are you the healer?" Wil's mother is _also_ giving him a strange look and he can't help but wonder what these people have been told about him.

"Nope! He's just some hobo I picked up off the street who happens to know his way around a head wound," Wil's got herself covered again and is trying, _desperately_, to get herself under control. "Of _course_ he's the hea- _Anders_. And I'd watch the talk about keeping Bethany locked up, were I you."

_Well, that probably explains the _looks_. _

"Maybe Mother's right," Bethany's voice cracks. "I _am_ safer here. _Other people_ are safer when I'm here."

"Shut _up_, Bethany!" Somehow, Wil manages to make this _shut up _come across as angry and _incredibly_ affectionate. "We're _all_ safer here. _Hiding_. And _everyone_ is less dangerous when they're alone or locked up. Anyone can hurt _anyone_. It's not limited to mages, or even _bad_ _people_," her voice trembles, and that Anders manages to place it with what she'd done to the guard when all he wants to do right now is kiss her is a minor miracle. "You _know_ this, Sunshine. Don't start trying to convince yourself otherwise, ok?"

"But-"

"_Beth_," Wil climbs onto the bed, being careful to not knee her sister anyplace vital, and plants a chaste and gentle peck on Bethany's forehead. "I'm sorry."

Bethany nods, her eyes full of gratitude as her sister pulls away to walk out the room, and then the apartment, without so much as a backwards glance or a word of good-bye.

Anders is relieved, at least, that she seems to know exactly how lucky she is.

* * *

><p>The taste remains- like copper, smoke and<p>

_death_

Wil gags again, but there's nothing left inside of her save for air and loathing.

She'd chewed a sprig of elfroot in the hopes that it would help, but no. The taste remains.

The square is remarkably quiet. She'd half-expected for crowds to have formed after their episode with the guardsman. It says much about life in the slums of Kirkwall that screaming for one's life could elicit so little reaction.

Remembering it makes her shift on the step she'd claimed by collapsing. Exhaustion, frustration, confusion…she doesn't know which had driven her out of her apartment, which had dropped her here and which is making her eyes burn with unshed tears.

_Maybe Aveline will understand when you tell her. Beth was unarmed, _you_ were unarmed. _Wil remembers a conversation between Aveline and Bethany a few weeks earlier and Aveline's assertion that magic was like a sword that could never be put down. _Surely she wouldn't…_

No. _Aveline_ wouldn't. _Never_. But the Captain of the Kirkwall City Guard might _have_ to.

_Maybe Anders was right. Maybe I should let him destroy the body._

But then she remembers the young man's face when he saw her, and his expression was…horrified. _What did I look like to him, how terrifying was I that he would draw his sword on me, unarmed and unarmored, and strike? Could he tell what I was capable of before I knew myself?_

_it enters her nose and mouth like air but tastes like blood, like copper, smoke and death and her body knows it's not her own, but it uses it anyway…to _heal

_It's a sick joke._ She'd watched him collapse, eyes suddenly lifeless even as she felt herself mending. _All I did was get between him and my sister. I never wanted to hurt him, I only wanted to keep her safe._

She feels a hand on her back, inevitable. She has no idea how long he's been sitting there, only that there's not an inch of her that doesn't know _now_ and he's guiding her back onto the steps. It's painful, the rough stone edges digging into her back, but easier for him to examine her stomach.

Unfortunately, examining her requires much touching of bare flesh. His fingers are pushing up at the satin band she has wrapped around her torso to bind herself and his thumb follows along behind, searching for something beneath her skin.

"Bethany said the guard just _panicked_ when he saw her. Tell me what happened to _you_," it's a demand she wants to ignore, but she tells Anders anyway, haltingly, about the fear when he saw her, and the way he'd screamed. Then his sword had went out, catching _there_-

She moves his hand to the center of the wound on her side, which is mostly obscured by drying blood, and she holds on for a few seconds, the warmth of him against her palm a thing that she doesn't really want to give up, before withdrawing so he can see it for himself.

It had shocked her, the pain, and then she began to worry what would happen to Bethany if _she_ died; would he go to get Beth help, or would he finish the job and leave both of their bodies behind, blaming their deaths on raiders or thugs?

Anders is listening but mostly looking and _feeling_ and his touch is no longer mere searching but also reassurance, comfort. His palm drags around the curve of her waist and she cannot ignore the way the heat spreads from that point of contact like liquid flames scurrying just beneath her skin to set her heart, her head, to pounding.

"That's when I tasted him," she slides her fingers down her side and there's a brief entanglement as she returns his hand to him and forces herself up. "He died and I felt better. Except for the _vomiting_."

_Remember the vomiting,_ she's urging herself to think of _anything_ that isn't how it feels to be touched by him, how unlike anyone else he is _because he's an abomination, Wil. And it's my guess that abominations make _lousy_ lovers._

"What would Justice have done, if you'd managed to free Karl?"

He's sitting hunched next to her, hands between his knees as if he's afraid of overstepping any boundaries. His nose crinkles at her question and she can't tell if he's hurt, angry, or just confused by her.

"It would have been a victory for him. A mage freed from injustice...that's the point of this," he gestures to his chest and then frowns. "Unless you mean..._oh_, " face relaxing, Anders is momentarily flustered. "You're assuming Karl and I were lovers."

It's not a question.

"I _can_ be astute." And this is really not an answer.

"It's a personal thing that you ask. What makes you think that you have the right?" His eyebrow goes up and he _might_ be joking, although she doubts it. "Especially after what you kept from _me_."

There's a point there, but Wil ignores it. "After what you witnessed upstairs, I figure the balance of knowledge has officially tipped in your favor."

"True," he smiles, a lightning quick twitching of his lips. "That _was_ awkward. Although..." he regards her with interest for a moment and it's much _lighter_ than touching but it effects her very much the same- eardrums vibrating, heart thumping, skin sparking and a slow burning in her stomach. "Yes. We were together for a while at the Circle in Ferelden. But that was years ago. I never _really_ considered that he and I would be together here, even if he were free."

"Why?" She's genuinely curious, despite the way tension is drawing at her nerves because she doesn't know what she wants to come out of this line of questioning. "He was handsome, educated...eloquent. Magey. He seemed like..."

"Someone I should like?" Laughter brightens his face despite the shadow of loss that's settled over him. "You might have a difficult time imagining this, but I have liked a _lot_ of someones in my lifetime, and they've come in a lot of different…configurations. Karl was special, but it was a time and a place as much as anything. Things are different now, and I can't see there ever being a time or a place that works for me and...," he's regret again, his fingers pulling at a strip of linen tied around his wrist. "Me and anyone."

"Of course," her attention goes to her hands, because that was it, right? What she really wanted confirmed? She ignores the not so subtle crash of disappointment and gives in to the awkward silence that has decided to consume them.

"You know," his voice carries quietly to her after a few moments of nothing. "If I'm being honest...had I met you a year ago, I could see myself appreciating your particular...configuration."

"Oh, you'd be surprised," she grins at him, hoping it doesn't betray any of the ways his words have teeth that work at her. "A year ago? I was barely land trained. Sunburnt from being lost at sea _and_ I could only speak archaic fish languages. Cardwin had to teach me _everything_. Also, I had two heads."

"Two?" He looks relieved, as if he were expecting a different reaction to his small admittance. "I could imagine a few _practical_ uses for an extra head."

"Ha! I bet you could. _Pervert_," she's already starting to feel better and _almost_ normal. "But you're thinking two heads like this," she gestures to her face. "No, the second one was about the size of a pomegranate and comprised mostly of this toothy _maw_. And all he did was tell dirty jokes. Mostly about seaman, but sometimes he'd get in a few that weren't naut...ical."

"Jokes about seaman? Remind me one day to tell you about a friend I had in the Wardens," he presses his mouth to his bicep and watches her for a few seconds. Then, "Why didn't you tell me about Bethany?"

"Because one apostate is illegal, but two is an uprising," it comes out quickly, as if she'd had it loaded on a spring. It's an excuse, but it's true. "And it's one thing to trust you with _my_ life, but another thing entirely to trust you with my _sister's_."

His face is mostly in shadow and, therefore, unreadable.

"I was going to tell you earlier, at Aveline's first celebration. I had planned on..." she shakes her head as if that could erase the words from the air between them. "Bethany and I are sort of a…deal. You can't get one without the other, and I'm secure enough in myself to know that _I'm_ the one who benefits most from that. I think I just wanted to stand on my own with you, separate from my family, or magic. To see if it could be done," she laughs at herself, a derisive snort that's nothing like amusement. "I guess I should have asked you what I thought first thing tonight, huh?"

Anders watches her for a moment and, unless she's suffering from the events of the evening, she thinks he might actually be leaning towards her. Certainly, his eyes aren't staying in a neutral place, and she can't help but feel weirdly exposed beneath his gaze. Not that Bethany's blouse is helping in that regards, as pointlessly low-cut as it is _and why am I thinking about my blouse?_

"I could still tell you what I thought," he's stopped getting closer, perhaps seeing the quiet panic in her expression. "I _do_ remember."

She's tempted to hear what he has to say in his voice that's almost like finger tracing down her spine. But there's, by his own admission, nothing that can be between them and only so many times a door can crack itself open and slam itself shut again before it starts to become a terrible sort of frustration.

_And I have enough of those, and more mounting every day._

"No need. I'd just forget, anyway," she tips herself forward and onto her feet. "It's been a long night and tomorrow will be…a day. Possibly my last, depending on how the Captain and the seneschal want to proceed."

He's up in a second, all vestiges of whatever it had been passing between them lost to resolution.

"I think I know what happened, what's happening to you, and I might be able to help. Don't throw your life away for a scared guardsman, Wil," he's pleading. "I might have a book at my clinic. _Promise_ me you won't turn yourself in before I can get back to you."

"You have a book," Wil knows she must look like the epitome of disbelief. "About…_what_, exactly?"

"Dragon cults. What I _think_ you did to that guard…it's called _reaving_," distaste lingers all over the word. Distaste and…_nostalgia_? "I've seen it used before, by someone who taught herself."

Wil feels her eyes widen with horror-

_the taste remains_

"Who would..._that_? And _willingly_?"

He doesn't explain. "_Promise_ me. _Please_."

She remembers Bethany, crumpled and bleeding on the ground. _She'd_ done nothing. "All right, all right. Because you begged so nicely."

Relief curves his mouth and his hand finds her waist again and there's a small pull forward, whether by him or her own want, she does not know. And, even though he's not touching bare skin, he might as well be as his thumb runs over the only place on her that still hurts.

The door is cracked open-

"Be careful, Wil," his hand falls away and, after the briefest of hesitations, he leaves.

-and then slammed shut.

_And here I thought it was going to be taking a man's life by _breathing _that would be the thing that kept me up all night._ She inhales, the first _true_ breath she's drawn since his hand had touched her back.

"_Dammit_, Anders."

* * *

><p><strong>Note from SF:<strong> Another epic chapter. I apologize (for so many things).


	10. The Last Thing

"We've searched all over Lowtown, Hawke. No traces of him," Aveline's fingers press into her temples. This is the last thing she needs, a guard dead under mysterious circumstances and his murderer...

_Not_ murderer. _Hawke is _not_ a murderer._

...the person _responsible_ standing in her office, looking uncharacteristically unsettled.

"He has to be close to our apartment! Anders didn't have time to take him far and he's not exactly a _physical_ powerhouse," Hawke frowns and holds her balled fist to her lips in frustration. "You haven't sent anyone to his clinic, have you?"

There's a tremor in her voice that gives Aveline pause. _Is _this_ why she's worried? Does she fear that the mage will be rooted out by the guard?_

"No. Not yet, anyway," she leans back against her desk to regard her friend. Face drawn, under eyes purpled with lack of sleep and hair less messy than it is utterly abandoned to chaos, she looks every inch the street rat. Even her clothes are at their worst- her snug suede trousers are worn through on both knees and her boots might very well have been pulled off of a dead man. A recently _exhumed_ dead man. "You look terrible."

Despite it accompanying a rather derisive snort, Hawke manages something close to a smile, "Oh, Aveline. You _do_ know how to sweet talk a woman."

Aveline doesn't even roll her eyes.

"But...I _feel_ terrible," she's not able to look at Aveline when she says this. "I kill in self-defense, or to protect Bethany, or you guys. I would never attack someone with no cause like that."

_Of course you wouldn't_. Aveline sighs. _This is the last thing you need. In case you haven't thought that within the past five seconds. _

"Captain," the voice in the doorway comes from Guardsman Donnic, the man they'd saved from an ambush in Lowtown. He's handsome in a plain way, Aveline thinks. And he's got kind eyes. She nods him in and he attempts to greet Hawke. "Serah...I'm afraid I don't remember your name."

"Esther Lu Schmeekly," Hawke supplies, arms going across her chest as if to dare him to question her. Then her voice turns pretty, as does her smile, "But _you_ can call me _Bubbles_."

"You are _such_ an ass, Hawke," Aveline gives her one good glare, hoping the thinness of her patience is clearly conveyed, and returns to Donnic. "What's the word, guardsman?"

"We found him...I think."

This gets Hawke's undivided attention. She stands just as Aveline holds out one hand to silence her. _The last thing I need. _

"Give me the details. Location, state of the body, any clues to who might have done it," Aveline ignores the tiny, strangled sound that finds its way out of Hawke's throat. _If _she_ can't tell that I'm trying to protect her..._

"By the docks, Captain. And it's not a body. Just armor...burnt. And ashes inside it," Donnic's lips twitch in acknowledgement that his findings are quite grim indeed. "We're assuming it's him. There was little scorching on the stone. A fast burn."

_Magic_.

Hawke allows a small hiss of anger that forces another glare from Aveline. "Thank you, guardsman. Your report is appreciated," she closes her eyes and hopes it seems contemplative and not like she's hiding anything. "Who was it who accompanied you on your search?"

Confusion clouds his eyes and then he lowers his chin in a curt nod. "Of course. It was Brennan and me, Captain. She's in the barracks if you'd like to speak with her. We agreed on the report, however."

"What? Oh, I didn't mean to imply that I...," Aveline touches her forehead and wills herself to calm down. _Don't let him, or any of them, see you flustered. It sends the wrong message._ "I trust both of you, guardsman. Send her my thanks."

_Magic_. And from Hawke's reaction, she knows exactly what happened. _I'll do my best to protect _her_, but I'm not risking _anything_ for that abomination._ She frowns at the air in front of her.

"Ahem."

It's painfully polite, this _ahem_, and Aveline is mortified to see that Donnic remains in her office, awkwardly standing just inside her open door. The heat of embarrassment spills across her cheeks as she mumbles a mostly incomprehensible _Dismissed, guardsman_

"Thank you Captain. Serah _Schmeekly_."

and follows him far enough to close her door behind him.

When she turns to Hawke, she expects a smirk and a quip. Or, at the very least, a raised eyebrow and her two index fingers pressed together while she supplies the _kissy_ sounds. Instead, she sees her friend staring fire at the floor, her jaw held tight and off center, her hands fisted at her sides.

"I told him, Aveline," Hawke looks up and her eyes are bright with the sort of anger that can only be caused by betrayal. "He offered to burn the body and I told him that I...no. I told him _no_."

"And he did it anyway?" Aveline settles back onto her desk. She has some words she'd like to say on the subject of the mage, but Hawke is rare to this sort of anger and Aveline doesn't want to inadvertently push her further. "What _happened_, Hawke?"

"I don't know," it comes out fast. Blinking rapidly, she tugs up the hem of her blue henley shirt to expose a small gash, barely three inches long, that could be close to four or five days old. "He did that to me. After he knocked Bethany unconscious. I scared him, and he swung."

"You...," Aveline looks from the wound _the scratch, really_, and back up to Hawke. "He did _that_, with his _sword_?"

Eyes narrowed. "Yes."

"Last night?"

Eyes closed. "_Yes_, Aveline. Last night."

"Are you certain it was a sword? Some of the guardsmen carry daggers with them, maybe it just seemed like a sword because you had too much to drink, or you were worried about your sister," Aveline's brows knit. She just can't make Hawke's account match up with what she's _seeing_. "A dagger. A dagger makes _sense_."

"Because I have no fucking idea what a sword looks like," apparently Aveline's plan to keep Hawke's anger to a simmering rage had failed. "It wasn't a dagger. It was a _sword_. And it was last night, and the reason it's like this is because..." her voice catches as if she's just now started listening to herself. And then the anger drains and she wilts in resignation. "Would you really wager your reputation on my trustworthiness?"

Aveline needs to tread carefully here. There's a line she must maintain between her position as Captain of the Kirkwall City Guard and her personal relationships. She can't abuse her power and she can't damage the integrity of the guard.

But _this_...she knows Hawke. More importantly, she knows _Bethany_. And she knows what it's like to be a scared soldier and how nerves could make the most innocuous sounds, the most innocent shadows, seem threatening. Add a sword into that and...

"We'll take it one day at a time, Hawke," her hands hold the edge of her desk. "I believe you when you say you were acting in self defense. I just don't understand how he _died_." Hawke's face goes pained. "But it doesn't matter. The official report will make it clear that he attacked unprovoked. You did the right thing by coming here. If a witness had come forward-"

She's interrupted by a mad banging on the door followed by a muffled assertion:

"This is official business. I KNOW the Captain."

"_Bastard_," Hawke takes it upon herself to stalk across the room and, before Aveline can even react, Anders is being dragged in by the collar of his..."What happened to your robes? Accidentally set them on fire?"

"_Hawke_," it's a warning from the Captain of the Guard. Hawke, hand still tangled in a black linen tunic, looks one second from setting something aflame herself.

"_What?"_

"If you're going to throttle him, at least let me shut the door," Aveline does just that. "This way I don't _have_ to intervene."

"Corrupt already, I see," the mage seems admirably unconcerned about the woman snarling only inches from his face, whom he regards with uncharacteristic detachment considering Aveline's last memory of him involved him making doe eyes at an oblivious Hawke over drinks at the Hanged Man. "Would it make either of you less eager to kill me if I say I did it to protect you both?"

"No!" The women answer in unison and that, at least, registers as a small wrinkle of concern between his eyes.

"I told you what to do with the body, Anders," Hawke relinquishes her hold on his shirt, but the rage on her face is a clear indication that she's not yet committed to a non-violent resolution. "And then you went and did the exact _opposite_ of what I wanted!"

"I'm not the only one," his dispassionate expression finally gives to a mixture of desperate concern and intense frustration, causing Aveline to suddenly feel as if she's overhearing a conversation she shouldn't be. His voice softens to something plaintive and almost childlike, "You _promised_ me, Wil."

"I _did_ wait for you," she's showing signs of being undone under his gaze, but her response is not dulled. "All morning, in fact. Waiting for the guards to show up because a witness came forward, waiting for..._worse_ than guards because someone saw what I did and confused it with magic."

"_What?_" Aveline cuts in. _Magic, _again_. The last thing I need._ "Now I _have_ to know what happened. Out with it, Hawke."

Anders responds instead, his hand going into his satchel to pull out a slim tome bound in dragon hide. The spine is, appropriately enough, rough scales arranged in crests and the Fereldan script that loops around unfamiliar symbols burnt into the cover gleam gold in the torchlight. Despite its ornate appearance and familiar language, both indications that it was more than likely commissioned for a nobleman with a simple interest in the arcane, it turns Aveline's stomach queasy.

"You have, like, six possessions to your name and you couldn't remember if you had _that_?" Hawke's eyebrow is high. "And it took you almost _twelve hours_ to find?"

Besides a tightening of his jaw, the mage does not respond. He's too busy sliding his finger along the top, searching for a particular page. Cracking it open, he holds it out to Aveline with a triumphant, "I think _this_ is what she did to that guard!"

_Maker._ It's an image of a muscular woman, naked save for an elaborate helmet bearing two large and dangerous looking horns, ecstatically entwined with a dragon. A _male_ dragon. A _horrifically_ and _excrutiatingly __detailed_ male dragon.

And it's one of those pictures where the subjects are posed with the express purpose of eradicating all doubts as to what those horrific details are doing. _Maker._

"Andraste's tits, how bad can it be?" Hawke wheels around the mage to see what has her friend so speechless and immediately throws her hand over the picture. "What the _fuck_, Anders?"

"What?" He pulls the book from her hand to check and- "Oh. _Shit_."

His cheeks burn a fierce shade of crimson and Aveline is fairly certain the temperature in the room has gone up a few degrees because of it.

"Uh, not that," he begins to flip, frantic, through the pages, anything to keep from meeting Hawke's fierce stare or seeing Aveline's still shocked expression.

"Definitely. Not. _That_." Hawke confirms through her teeth.

"This!" He has the book out again, his lips parting in a forced smile of _See? No nudity. Now _please_ forget I ever showed you dragon sex and we can all die happy._

"That's...not much better," Hawke grumbles and looks away, misery plain in her green eyes and the set of her shoulders.

This image _isn't_ much better, really. It's the same woman, by her helmet, but she's on a battlefield and surrounded by the twisted corpses of vanquished enemies and one, final, combatant is caught by his throat, held aloft in her clawlike hand and...

"Is she...eating his...soul?" Aveline tilts her head, trying to make sense of the swoops of red that encircle the warrior and the symbols that look like ants or skulls that seem to be spilling from her victim's lips.

"More or less," Anders tries again to sound cheery but Hawke snatches the book away and throws it on Aveline's desk. Changing tactics, and never looking away from where Hawke has stepped past them to stand with her back turned, "One way a dragon defends itself is to use an enemy's life force to heal its own injuries. I think that Wil accidentally consumed dragon's blood during our fight at the Bone Pit and, as a result, can do things like...that."

"_Hawke_," Aveline says it, and it's sympathy, concern and fear in a single syllable. "Do you _want_ me to take you in."

She doesn't respond for several, agonizing, seconds. Aveline can see where her arms are crossed, her long, strong fingers digging into her biceps to hold back another outburst. This was not the Wilhelmina Hawke she'd known for the past year, the woman who took the most personal of tragedies with a lightning flash of anguish and then a quick nod to her own, slightly warped, humanity in the form of a joke. This Hawke was too angry, too distressed.

"You mean do I want to be imprisoned...or executed ?" Hawke speaks quietly, almost as if she can keep Anders from overhearing what she has to say. "Absolutely not. I'm scared _shitless_ of both. But I keep thinking about what you said to Bethany...about the difference between a mage and a warrior. How _we_ can put our swords away."

Anders makes a noise like an cat with a freshly trampled tail.

"Down boy," Aveline snaps. "Hawke's already told me off on that one."

"I've been practicing magic resistance since I was ten and I can _barely_ shrug off a simple mind blast. I don't know if this is something that I can learn to control-"

"You _can_," Anders isn't as respectful of Hawke's obvious desire to remain physically removed from them, and he strides forward to catch her elbow. Aveline expects her friend to drive it into his nose, but she merely looks the other way. "I've seen it done, and by someone with _far_ less willpower than you. It won't be easy, but I can teach you to meditate and that book will help. Take it home, read it..._please_. Don't just give up like this."

"That book," Hawke points at Aveline's desk, finally making eye contact with the mage. "No. I have enough to worry about without my mother thinking I'm into dragons now. " She blinks. "_Sexually_."

He waves off her protest, "Then I'll keep it at my clinic. This isn't all bad, you know. There are some skills that are less disgusting and more useful...although they make _my_ job harder."

"And what _is_ your job, mage?" Aveline's not certain she wants Hawke learning anything that book might have to teach, nor receive Anders' aid at _any_ level. "Besides desecrating bodies and-"

She stops before she can say anything _offensive_.

"Leave him alone, Aveline," Hawke is back to playing his protector. "I just...Anders- take your book and go."

"Wil, I need to tell-"

"Aveline and I have a grand cover-up to plan. The last thing you need is to be involved in _that_," although her tone is far from heavy, Aveline sees the faint blaze in Hawke's eyes, the residual anger she's trying to hide from herself as much as anyone.

"Can I call on you then, this evening?"

Aveline can't say she cares for the formal way _that_ comes across.

"_Call_ on me?" Hawke appears uncertain whether she should laugh or physically remove him from the premises. "Sure. But only if you refer to me as _milady_ when you do so. And don't forget the flowers. I hear they're necessary for proper calling...on."

"Andraste's knicker-weasels, not like that. To check on your sister, mostly," he smoothes over the brief flash of hurt on his face. "And perhaps talk more about the..."

"Whorehouse," the heel of Hawke's hand strikes her forehead.

"Hmmm. _Not_ the whorehouse," he looks to Aveline for clarification, but she has no idea either.

"No...I'm supposed to meet Isabela at The Blooming Rose tonight."

Aveline and the mage share another confused, and concerned, glance and Hawke commits to a full body eyeroll at their assumption.

"Missing woman? Horrible Orlesian husband? I've been asking around the guards in Hightown and Varric has been checking with his contacts, but nobody seems to know anything about her," Hawke shrugs. "So her favorite whore it is."

"Tomorrow, then. I'll try to make it early this time," his eyes are guarded. "I'd like to explain myself fully. Well, as much as I _can_...considering. "

"If that's what you want," Hawke shrugs again. "Fine."

"Dismissed, _mage_," Aveline cocks her thumb at the door and is relieved when he's finally out. "Maker, the last thing I need is for him to start coming around like that _all_ the time."

Having sunk herself into the oversized chair Aveline had brought out of the Keep foyer and into her office, Hawke only offers a rueful smile in response.

_I don't know if I like who she is around him,_ Aveline wants to kick herself for the thought, but it's there. _The last thing I need is for _that_ to happen._

* * *

><p>"You want me to go with you to the whorehouse," Fenris had a straight way of saying these things that made them sound absolutely insane. "Why? To see how many patrons try to secure my services?"<p>

Of _course_ he would go there.

"Don't worry, I'm sure Isabela will be more than happy to run interference for you," Wil turns her eyes towards the ceiling. "Or make you wish that the patrons _were_ trying to secure your services."

This earns a chuckle, and Wil is surprised again at how he veers so easily from making her feel like the worst person in the world to making her feel almost charming.

Maybe it's the wine.

He's working on his second bottle since she'd arrived. Not that he'd finished the first. She could see the remnants of it, the broken glass that catches firelight to glitter on the floor, and the rivulets of red that continue to trickle town the mansion's stone wall.

"Aren't you afraid of cutting your feet?" Her toes curl in sympathy at the idea of it. "They're not _completely_ invulnerable."

Fenris swings his head to observe the mess he's made and then shrugs. It's a bemused, arrogant shrug and he follows with another long swallow.

"Danarius used to have me serve this to his guests," he stares at the bottle, his black brows low over his eyes, and his tongue coming out to catch an errant drop at the corner of his mouth. "I _intimidated_ them. Or my appearance intimidated them, rather."

"A valuable service, no doubt," Wil shifts uncomfortably, not quite sure what to say next. It was hard to know what he was feeling from minute to minute. "If you're going to buy a person, you might as well get your money's worth. _I_ always say."

_That was probably the wrong thing._

His eyes narrow.

"I don't always say that." Pause. "I _never_ say that."

"I know," he touches the bottle to his lips almost contemplatively and then hurls it against the wall in an explosion of green glass and fragrant red liquid.

"You could always offer me some of that...I hate to see good wine go to waste. Even if it _is_ evil magister wine."

He smirks and takes a seat across from her, his posture erect despite his mild inebriation. "There's more in the cellar, if you feel like fighting shades to get to it. I'm afraid that I've finished off all of the unguarded spirits."

Although she finds the idea of heading down to the wine cellar with her sword in hand terribly amusing, she's not much in the mood to fight for her drink. "No, no. I'll go without. Besides, you're going to need all the wine you can get if you're ever going to finish painting these walls."

This earns the biggest laugh yet and his lips remain curved after his amusement has passed. Wil watches him for a second, wishing she knew him well enough to ask more questions about his markings, or his life in Tevinter. Or maybe his hair. The stark contrast between his swarthy complexion and the pale strands that fell into his eyes was striking.

_Does he really _need_ to know how shallow you are? Doubtful._

Instead, after a surprisingly comfortable silence, he points at her and tilts his head.

"So tell me about Ferelden, Hawke. Besides its heroes, I know very little."

"_Ferelden_? Not much to say, really. There are dogs...and mud. The stereotypes," she leans forward on her elbows, not quite certain what to make of the memories evoked by Ferelden. Singing raucous sailor songs while hunting with her father, summer nights at Barly's Pond spent floating hand in hand with Bethany as they discussed exactly how many hearts they would break in their lifetimes. The smell of farmland and freshly turned soil, lip-bit quiet fumblings with the Cleary twins in a confession vestibule in the Lothering Chantry, less restrained romps in a small canvas tent at Ostagar with a fellow soldier named Maureen. Then a nightmarish storm of betrayal and darkspawn, running for her life, running for her family's lives...and failing. "I try not to think about it too much. My life is here now...for better or for worse."

This bothers him.

"But it was your _home_. You would leave it behind so easily?"

This bothers _her_.

"_Easily_? I lost my _brother_ to the Blight. Asshole had been fighting darkspawn with me for months and, the moment other people are around, he has to go and be a big, damn hero," she's startled by her own admission and the vehemence behind it.

"I didn't mean to..." he looks away, momentarily troubled before returning with a more neutral expression. "So...you wish to have my company at the brothel?"

"You make it sound so romantic!" Wil forces Carver out of her mind; he goes as grudgingly as ever. "Although I don't imagine it can turn out any worse than our trip to the Bone Pit." She forces a wide smile.

He returns it, in his own way. No teeth, but he's definitely grinning through a curtain of white. "I'm hoping that _this_ evening doesn't end with you covered in blood. Or me having to carry you home."

"What?" She twists in chair, legs crossing and uncrossing. _Why so fidgety all of a sudden._ "_You_ couldn't carry me!"

It's his turn to lean forward. "I _did_ carry you. You were just too unconscious to remember. Perhaps I'm stronger than you think."

"Perhaps. One of these days we might have to test this theory." She means it as a joke, but it comes out in such a way that causes him to _really_ smile, even as his cheeks deepen in color. "With swords, I mean. The big kind. Of _metal_."

"Hmmm. I can admit that the idea of sparring with you is intriguing. You are far more capable a warrior than I'm used to meeting," he _looks_ intrigued and something else she's not used to seeing and can't quite place. "So when does our evening adventure begin?"

"We'll be by around nightfall. I'd like to stay ahead of the crowd...and avoid the possibility of running into my uncle," she shivers at the thought. "I'm counting on it going smoothly, but..."

Fenris nods in wordless understanding. "You know where to find me, Hawke." One hand waves at the room around him and she witnesses the brief struggle of revulsion and pride as he acknowledges what this place is...and what it means for him to be here.

* * *

><p>"So...this is a brothel," Bethany's voice is muffled by Wil's shoulder. "It's...nice. <em>Fancy<em>."

"I wouldn't sit down if I were you, Beth," Wil's nose wrinkles as she notes the difference between the elegantly crafted furnishings- dark wood and jewel-toned velvet everywhere- and the men and women who are draped drunkenly across them. Most appear to have not even a passing acquaintance with the concept of soap and few would look out of place in their tenement. "This is Kirkwall's _classy_ brothel?"

Fenris, tense at her elbow, snorts. "It's a fairly inexpensive evening if all you do is drink watery ale and talk to the whores when they're between clients."

"Speaking from experience, are we?" Wil observes him from the corner of her eyes and swears she can feel Bethany's cheek burning through the fabric of her blouse.

"Being on the run takes you interesting places," is his deadpan response.

"I guess," Wil looks around again. The Blooming Rose, with its deeply suggestive banners, had a reputation for being an almost charming establishment. Varric strenuously disagreed, of course, and Wil is finding herself on his side. Although the scantily clad men and women who made their rounds from table to table seemed pleasant enough, the other employees, the ones who earned their coin on their feet, had hard suspicious eyes that made Wil feel as if she'd done something terrible just by walking through the door.

"Is that Isabela?" Bethany's hand is clamped so tightly around her own that Wil is starting to lose feeling in her fingers. It had been Bethany's idea to come with her, boredom and curiosity overriding Wil's protests and her own still bruised forehead.

"Thank the Maker, _yes_," Wil pulls her sister past too many tables full of men who seem to have them confused with the women that are for hire. Unlike the evening before, when a pat on the ass was something she could laugh about with Anders, there's too much intent here, too many expectations in the crude and leering gazes that rake over the Hawke sisters.

They're almost to the counter before they get _openly_ propositioned, by a tidy young man with clear white skin and wavy auburn hair that he wears slicked back from a delicately featured face.

"I have ten gold," he steps into their path and, pinned in by tables on both sides, Wil is forced to stop. "That's a _lot_ to the likes of you, I imagine." He speaks like a yawn and strokes one elbow thoughtfully. Strangely enough, he seems fascinated by Wil rather than Bethany. "You have a very interesting nose. To say nothing of your _mouth. _I bet you can do all sorts of _fascinating_ things with that mouth..."

"She can't, not for _you_," Fenris is between them, his moss-colored eyes narrowed to slits that gleam danger bright in the flickering light cast by the chandeliers above. "But if you'd like to find out what she can do with a _blade_, you're more than welcome to meet us outside."

The man's lips twist down at the sight of the elf asserting himself as if he has the right and Wil, feeling both grateful and reckless, leans forward.

"And _he_ doesn't even need a sword to make you sorry you ever expressed interest in the _fascinating_ possibilities of my mouth," Wil feels Bethany cringe against her shoulder. "But I'll leave that up to him."

Fenris looks pointedly down at his gauntleted hand, the tips of his fingers protected by razor sharp steel that _snickt_ softly when he flexes and unflexes them.

The man falls away without so much as a sneer.

Fortunately, Isabela has spotted them and her particular brand of attention is deeply welcome after the gauntlet of discomfort that had proceeded it.

"Hawke! Well it's _about_ time!" It might just be Wil's imagination, but it almost seems as if Isabela's tunic is even smaller than normal as she bounds over, all lusty curves and wicked smiles. "I thought you were going to leave me waiting forever," she gives the collar of Wil's shirt an indolent tug.

"Something tells me you'd have figured out _some_ way to make do without me," Wil laughs, even though she should still be annoyed after what had happened the night before. "You don't seem the type to let being stood up ruin your fun."

"Not at all!" That's when she notices Fenris, quietly holding his own just behind Wil and the glint in her chestnut eyes goes predatory. "But I'd rather have fun with you...despite not knowing where to _start_. All three of you are so..."

Bethany drops Wil's hand for the first time since they'd stepped through the front door and inches forward. _Make's breath, Bethany._ Wil turns enough to catch pink blossoming across her sister's cheeks as she realizes she just offered herself up for the taking.

"Oh, sweet thing, I _would_," Isabela begins to walk away from them, leading them up the stairs. "But I think your sister would kill me where I stood."

"I didn't mean..." Bethany throws Wil a look of such mortification that Wil can't help but laugh aloud.

"Don't worry, sister. I'll keep you safe from brazen pirates...assuming that's what you want."

Isabela pauses in front of them, smiling down from a few steps above. From this angle, and with her hips tilted in mid-step, Wil finds it quite easy to understand Bethany's flustered reaction to the other woman.

"Isn't that what we _all_ want, Hawke?"

"_Not_ what I meant, Isabela." Fenris chuckles behind her and Bethany chokes out a _kill me_. "So tell me, do you know this man we're going to see?"

"I've heard about him, of course. I don't _know_ him, however," Isabela's lips quirk. "_I_ prefer the floorshow, and _he's_ sought after enough that he can keep to his rooms."

"It seems our missing wife had fine taste in gi-"

"Hawke?" The voice that cuts into her musings is familiar.

"Sorrell!" She cranes her neck around Isabela's head so she can see past to where the elf is leaning against the second-floor balustrade. He's talking with one of the Rose's bouncers and… "What are you wearing?"

The last time she'd seen him he'd had on, well, nothing. But before _that_ he was a newly joined member of the Blackfoots, a band of thieves who'd arrived from Cumberland during the Blight. This evening, though, he's wearing decent leathers, including well-made boots that lace up to his knee, and over his breast-plate is an orange and navy tunic emblazoned with the seal of Kirkwall in white.

"This," he twists his fingers into the tunic for a moment, a pleased smile creeping across his handsome face. Then he shrugs. "I'm a guardsman now."

"No big deal?" Wil isn't certain if it's pride or envy that she feels, or perhaps both along with something else that springs from the familiar warmth in his violet eyes. "When did this happen? _How_ did this happen?"

"I can tell you later, if you want," he turns to the bouncer. "Thank you for your help, serah. I'll pass this information on." The bouncer gives him a slight nod and Sorrell approaches them, his fingers trailing along the stone railing. "It seems you've got a few stories of your own."

Wil blushes as she realizes his eyes have gone to Fenris, which Isabela would like to rectify.

"Hawke, _you_ have been holding out on me," she bumps her shoulder against Wil's arm and her brows go up in admiration. "You're like a _magnet_."

Wil is painfully aware of how this whole thing might be coming across to the two men. "Bethany and I worked with Sorrell when we first got to Kirkwall."

"So it's strictly business? Or has this elf succeeded where I have, so far, failed?" She turns her head and gives Wil a scrutinizing one over. "Is he the _reason_ I have, so far, failed?"

"I can't see how that's any of your business," Wil stares pointedly at the wall beyond Sorrell's shoulder, refusing to look at _anyone_.

"So _yes_," Fenris intones mirthlessly. Far from being disappointed, Isabela's face brightens with _possibility_ and Wil has her hand up to avoid becoming entangled in whatever ideas are percolating in that mind of hers.

"So…do you come here often?" Wil can _feel_ Isabela's disdain, but Sorrell grins.

"Can't afford it, don't need to," his eyes spark. "How about yourself?"

"We're here to see a…Jethann?"

Surprise and amusement play across Sorrell's features.

"Jethann's good, but I think the four of _you_ would tax even him."

"Sorrell!" Bethany sounds so _scandalized_.

"You know him?" Wil is afraid to ask _how_.

"Sure. He's my cousin," Sorrell looks up in thought. "Alienage cousin. So one of my great aunts married one of his uncles and, when his parents died, they took him in. No blood, but if either of us were still talking to our family, we'd bump into each other at nameday parties and weddings."

"If it makes you feel better, we're just here to ask him a few questions. In case you really thought I was here to screw your cousin," Wil hates herself for saying it like that. "Would you like to join us?"

Sorrell knows her well enough to wave off her stumble and he leads them down a low-lit corridor, every step taking them deeper into an aural cocoon of breathy gasps, pleased moans and the occasional sharp sound of a whip finding flesh to eke out cries of pain that seem like ecstasy.

Bethany's close again. "Does it have to be so…_noisy_?" She whispers, but not quietly enough.

"It doesn't _have_ to be, sweet thing, but where's the fun in _that_?"

Before Bethany can stammer out a response or die on the spot, Sorrell's letting them into a room that's even more elaborately decorated than the main floor. Vivid silks cover the overstuffed couches that line the walls, and red and purple sheers float down from the ceiling to encircle a mammoth bed that somehow manages to _not_ overwhelm the slight elf perched upon its end.

"Jethann, I presume?" Wil and Isabela step forward together. He measures them both with eyes that are the purest shade of blue that Wil has ever seen and doesn't seem to hate what he sees.

"You're ours for the next hour," Isabela tosses her hair over her shoulder and plants her hands on her hips.

"Ooooh," his legs uncross and he leans back on his hands in invitation.

"But we'll only need about five minutes," Wil amends with a frown.

"Five minutes for…four of you?" He winks at Sorrell but doesn't include him in the count. "Girl, you know I'm talented, but you're asking me to keep track of two hands, a tongue and one-"

"We're here to talk," Fenris has had enough.

"Pity," Jethann stands to approach Wil. "I mean, it _is_ my night off, but I was willing to make an exception for a group as attractive as _you_." His voice is as vibrant as his room and eyes, his entire persona glittering across the surface of what he says and how he says it. "I mean, why work if you're not working _hard_?"

His hips undulate on _hard_ and Isabela giggles.

"Oh, I _like_ him, Hawke. He reminds me of somebody I know…"

"I can't imagine who," Wil grouses, despite her agreement. Jethann has an air about him that's more than his affectations. Perhaps it's the light in his beautiful eyes, or the mirthful curve of his full lips. She can understand why someone married to a boor like Ghyslain would find comfort in a person who seemed to thrive on brightening those around him. "I'm looking for a woman named Ninette. Her…husband asked me to find him, and he suggested you might know where she went."

"Sweet, sweet Ninette," Jethann's eyes roll back as if she is a particularly delectable memory. "Unfortunately, I haven't seen her for several weeks. I miss her, but if it means she's finally gotten away from that gold-digging slug of a husband…well good for her. I just wish she'd said good-bye."

"So you don't think she's in any danger?"

He gasps, clutching his heart. "I hope not! Ninette was a darling. Everyone here _loved_ her. Sometimes two or three times a _night_!" His smirk gives into something less cheerful. "The only person who would ever harm her was Ghyslain, and he doesn't have the _balls_."

He's kind enough to pantomime which type of balls he means, much to Bethany's discomfort.

"So did she tell you she was leaving her husband, or do you just assume she did because of…well, her husband?" Wil is glad that she doesn't have to pretend to like Ghyslain around Jethann.

"I assume she did. I _hope_ she did. She deserves _better_," he's surprisingly emphatic on that last point.

"Did you ever ask her to leave Ghyslain for you?" His clear affection for the woman has made her curious as to the extent of their relationship, and she wonders if it's possible Ghyslain was setting someone up for a crime _he_ might have committed. Not many human men would be pleased with their wives being openly involved with an elven prostitute.

"Of course not," his voice wavers, and Wil can almost imagine the scene between him and Ninette, perhaps a quick _we could always run away together_ thrown out as they collected their breath, or as he helped her back into her dress. If pressed, he'd claim it was a joke and she'd pretend to believe him. "I know my place. I offer a service, nothing more."

"No, you offer the _best_ service," Isabela gestures to the bed. "Don't sell yourself short."

"And I like _you_. Why haven't we met before?" He's back to bubbly as he returns to Wil. "Now…you're not the only one looking for her. There's a templar who came around the other night, name of Emeric. He wasn't as feisty as most templars who find their way to me, wouldn't even let me have a peek beneath his skirts!"

"For shame!" Wil hides the cold tightening of her heart at the word _templar_. "What would a templar want with- was she a mage? Or do you think he was another one of Ninette's lovers?"

"I don't know if she was a mage or not…although she certainly cast a spell on me," he laughs a tinkly laugh. "As for him being her lover, _maybe_. She always had a thing for a man in uniform. I hate to _think_ of all the time I've wasted trying to find templar armor that _doesn't_ swallow my shoulders! Anyway, last I talked to him, this Emeric said he'd be in Darktown if I had any new information to give him. I'd say he's the one you should talk to and, if you happen to find out anything about Ninette, do come by and tell me. Like I said, good for her if she escaped. _I_ would just like to know if she's safe. I'll even waive the fee to visit me."

"_Fee?_ How much did this conversation cost us, Isabela?" Wil is looking for Ninette as much as she's working for Ghyslain, but she'd still hate to _lose_ money on this job.

"Two gold," Isabela's eyes dart away. "For me. And two for you."

"So you thought I was going stick around for a threesome? I _really_ need to work on my image," Wil glances at Sorrell leaning in the doorway and looking terribly amused. Fenris, next to him, is considerably _less_ so.

Bethany appears to be about one second from self-immolation.

"Ok, I see _two_ people who need to get out of here. Have fun with Isabela, Jethann," Wil gives the other woman's arm a sharp flick. "No doubt that she'll have fun with _you_."

"I take it I won't find you waiting at the bar, dripping with potential lovers?" Isabela's addressing Wil, but her eyes are already on Jethann. "_Pity_. See you later, Hawke. And no fair getting jealous later. You had your chance."

"Me and everyone else in Kirkwall!" Wil's already out the door when Isabela's voice carries back to her:

"That's _not_ what I _meant_, Hawke!"

* * *

><p>It's a nice evening to be walking, even if they are just strolling through the same alleys they always take from Hightown to their apartment.<p>

Sorrell, for one, is in a _fantastic_ mood as he regales Wil and Bethany with the details of his first week as a member of the city guard. He keeps managing to skirt how he became a guard, so much so that Wil is tempted to spend the night with him just to see if she can fuck it out of him. _As if you needed an excuse to spend the night with him, considering everything you've been through this past week. _

"So that friend of yours," his shoulder bumps her own in an attempt to break her from her distracted train of thought. "The elf…what's his story?"

Wil knew he was going to ask sooner rather than later, but she's heartened by the complete lack of jealousy in his voice. _And there shouldn't _be_ any jealousy. It's not like that between us. _

"He's an escaped slave from Tevinter," Wil grabs at the air in front of her. "He can tear a person's heart out. Or just…touch it, if he wants."

Which is strangely beautiful, considering how distant he seems so much of the time.

"Why would anyone want to touch another person's heart?" Sorrell's nose wrinkles in distaste.

"Well, knowing Fenris it's probably to piss them off. Either that, or to convince them to buy him some more _wine_."

"You mean his mansion doesn't have a wine cellar?" Bethany sounds surprised. "I thought those estates came with a never-ending supply of Orlesian vintages."

Remembering his assertion from earlier that day, Wil chuckles. "It does, but he has to fight shades and other magicky traps to get to it."

"No wonder he's so dour, if he has to work that hard just to get drunk," Sorrell looks up at the banners that that mark the entrance into their square. "So this is the fabled Hawke family slums, eh? I used to know a guy who lived in one of these buildings. Well, _lived_ might be an overstatement. And I don't think he had an apartment so much as a space under the stairs that he shared with a small colony of feral cats…"

"Cheery," Wil shudders and immediately pictures the undercity. Everyone lived like that there- not quite alive, squatting in whatever space they could claim and protect…from humans and animals alike. One night last week, when she'd visited Anders, they'd stood in the doorway to his clinic and watched in agonizing silence as one of his patients struggled along with her young son's lifeless body grasped in her arms. The woman had refused Wil's offer to help.

"_This is the one thing I can do for him. I've failed him a thousand times in Kirkwall…but I will at least send him off to the Maker of my own accord."_

"Are you all right?" Sorrell is suddenly inches away, concern softening his eyes as his hand brushes gently at her cheek. It's unexpected, his proximity and this familiar gesture that she's not quite certain what to do with. Unquestionably, it's _kind_. But it feels…official, somehow. And having him so close to her _home_ feels official, and she never really intended for official to happen between them and she's tempted to ask how, exactly, he'd ended up there with them, but that's when she sees Anders sitting alone on the stairs to their building and she lets out a noise that's half-way between a laugh and a moan.

_This…is the last thing I needed tonight._ The day rushes back and the gamut of emotions she's experienced since he'd left the evening before start to resurface in a maddening cacophony of things she's always tried her best to keep buried or at arm's length. Just _seeing_ him turns her into a raw nerve. _I _hate_ it._

Then a small, smug voice that is content to ignore the perfectly acceptable man right in front of her:

_Liar._

"Beth, I think Anders is here to check on your head," Wil catches her sister's eye and forces a smile. "Are you comfortable escorting him up to the apartment? I'm sure Mother will take him off your hands after that."

Bethany's expression is one of blatant skepticism but it's clear she's not in the mood to say why, especially not in front of Sorrell.

"So you're not coming up" She's shaking her head before the question is out. "Never mind. Of course not. What if he asks about you?"

_He's going to ask_ goes unsaid.

"Tell him I'll stop by the clinic as soon as I get a chance," squinting through her hair, Wil manages to block Anders from her vision, although she can see him wave and it's _completely_ endearing. "I'll be out searching for a templar these next few days, so I can't say for certain when it'll be."

"Mina, _don't_," one hand goes up on her hip in a posture Wil recognizes as Bethany Lays Things Out. It's a rare event, but usually well deserved. Tonight, though, she gives up before she even begins. "Never mind. I'll see you in the morning."

As soon as Bethany's out of earshot, Sorrell asks the question Wil knows he's been holding onto since she saw Anders.

"So you have the healer making house calls, now?" His lips twitch up on the left side. "I doubt that's a service that he offers just _anybody_."

"You've seen my sister," Wil begins to back away from Sorrell, the path to the Loon taking them the way they'd arrived. Beyond him, she's watching Bethany give her message to Anders, choosing to blink hard once Beth stops talking. When her eyes open again, Bethany is going inside and Anders is holding the door open for her, although his gaze is on the square. "Couldn't _you_ be tempted out of your hole in in the undercity by a pretty girl?"

"I could be tempted to do a lot of things by a pretty girl," his arm finds its way around her shoulders and it's comforting but..."And, by all means, take that as an open invitation."

Wil thinks of the previous night spent with her hands tucked resolutely behind her head in a rare show of self-restraint. Her body had protested her decision, rioting against her because she'd felt too much and allowed herself to be touched too many times. But that was all for someone else.

_Believe what you told him, Wil. It's just easier that way. _

"An open invitation, eh?" She catches him off guard to shove him up against the alley wall, her fingers slipping into his hair and her lips catching his in what ends up being a surprisingly satisfying kiss. As she pulls away, her hand finding his so she can begin leading him towards their inevitable end, she realizes she couldn't go back now if she wanted to. Anders is probably already settled in, listening to Bethany and Mother's stories about Father, or how Bethany's first showing of magic resulted in Wil waking up on a stifling summer night to a blizzard in their bedroom.

It would be normal compared to what he talked about with _her_, and what they got up to together. He and Bethany actually had things in common...and he was a man she could trust to keep Bethany safe.

_"It just seems fitting."_

"You're a million miles away, Hawke," Sorrell jiggles her arm.

_No, just about a quarter mile of back alleys._

"Then bring me back, Sorrell," she lets him tug her against his side, his arm tight around her waist. "The last thing I need is to get stranded so far away from home."

"And with no mermen or winged qunari to help you."

She hadn't realized she'd been telling that stupid story since she'd arrived in Kirkwall, although it had definitely lacked character until she'd tried to feed it to..._no, Wil. Not now. Not tonight. _

"_Exactly_."

* * *

><p><strong>Note from SF:<strong> I'm pretty sure that Anders and Fenris are conspiring to break Wil. It's going to be a long three years, I think.


	11. Crushed

They serve him a plate of cookies and treat him politely.

They speak of Carver and wear sad expressions.

They speak of Malcolm and the mother needs to excuse herself, leaving him alone with the sister.

She's pretty, as he's noted before. There's a still warmth in her dark eyes that speaks of inner strength and depth that she apparently doesn't want anyone else to notice.

_She's young._

It's not a condemnation, but an observation. And it's not just a matter of her age. She's been so sheltered, so loved and protected, that it's almost as if she has been living in a different version of the world than everyone else has gotten. Brothers and fathers can die, but an older sister will come to fill in those gaps. Templars may exist, but someone will watch and shield and risk their own safety.

"It's been that way my entire life," Bethany tries to smile, but her lips tremble from nerves and it doesn't go all the way up. "I could have never done it without my father…without Mina and Carver."

She eventually offers to see him downstairs, but he wouldn't dream of making her be alone in the building at this time of night. Then...

"Do you think Wil is...," he stops when he sees discomfort darkening her eyes. "Oh."

"Since Carver died, you're the only one who calls her that," she's trying to change the subject. She doesn't like dwelling on the one they're on anymore than he does. "I think she likes it."

He remains silent because he's not supposed to want anyone to like what he calls them.

"She might come home," getting to her feet, Bethany gathers their empty plates and glances towards the door. "If you don't feel like walking back to your clinic, you could stay here. Our uncle is out for the evening. When he comes in, he'll probably stumble over you and yell for a few minutes, but then he'll pass out and you can count on three of four hours of good sleep before the neighbors start going at it."

She doesn't specify what _it_ is, but the creasing of her brow spells it out quite clearly. Still, it had to be better than what went on in Darktown at night. _Or...anytime, really._

There's a brief struggle when she tries to convince him to take Wil's bedroll. He insists he can sleep fine in a chair, which is a lie. He can't sleep fine _anywhere_ anymore, especially when he's in the frame of mind he's currently in as Bethany extinguishes the lamps in the main room and locks herself into her own, leaving Anders alone with nothing but a bare and crackling fire.

And his thoughts.

His thoughts...they'd gotten him into trouble the night before. _You shouldn't have went to the Hanged Man in the first place...you shouldn't have walked them home...you shouldn't have touched her like that, or kept touching or admitted _anything_. _

Just remembering makes his fingers twitch and warm with the sensation of her skin catching against his own, of the minute shifts of her body as it responded. _What would you have done if she hadn't pushed your hand away? How far would you have taken it?_

_So_ far.

_Why? What could she possibly offer us? _

Anders sighs and ignores the steady press of desire just below his stomach. He'd been up all of the night before wrestling with Justice, he didn't want to relive the experience_. _The confusion, the pain, the slow and sad realization that he can't even have a _crush_ without it turning into the sort of situation that renders him incapable of trusting himself to _heal_ for fear of losing control...even though it hadn't felt like a loss of control. It had felt completely and sweetly normal.

_That's how it begins._

"How the _fuck_ would you know how it begins?" Anders flings his legs over the arm of the chair and turns so that his cheek is pressed against the back. It's a scratchy but welcome distraction from where his mind _wants_ to go...

* * *

><p>Sorrell wakes her before dawn with a gentle nudge of his nose against her bared breast. It's a small gesture which blooms into slow heat that spreads honey slow through her veins. The rest is a languid and effortless adjustment of their bodies in his narrow bed as they join to move in easy accord until he has <em>Maker, yes<em> falling hushed from his lips when they're not otherwise occupied with her.

Not one to part and leave her unsatisfied, he offers to finish in _other_ ways, but she lets him off. He'd done enough the night before and she just wants a few minutes to stretch out in the bed alone, on her stomach with the sheets tangled in her legs and the pillow punched and pressed into the exact shape she likes it.

"You don't _have_ to leave, you know," he perches on the edge of the bed after he's finished washing and Wil admires the curve of his neck. He's solidly built for an elf and, although he's not quite as tall as Fenris, his shoulders are fairly broad. "And you're welcome to stay as long as you want."

She laughs into his pillow. "So sweet of you to offer. Especially considering that you have absolutely _nothing_ to gain from that arrangement."

"I'm comfortable saying that I prefer having sex to _not_ having sex," he grins over his shoulder. "_Definitely_. And especially when you're…whatever you were last night."

_Frustrated?_ "If you had any idea what had to happen to get me to that point, you'd probably rather not be on the receiving end," one hand goes out and pushes a strand of hair behind his ear, lingering along the smooth length of it before it returns to tuck against her chin. "Unless it really _was_ that good for you. In which case…you might want to find yourself a steady supply of _dragons_."

For a few minutes, he doesn't respond. He's layering on and strapping into his armor, obviously still familiarizing himself with the process, and it seems to take much of his concentration. Once the boots are on, he's comfortable enough to speak again.

"I don't know if you're kidding or not, Hawke," he tugs the rawhide laces tight, wrapping the excess securely around his calf before tying an awkward knot. "But you're also spending time with a man who can touch hearts. Clearly your life has gotten nothing but _weirder_."

"Truer words, Sorrell," with a sigh for emphasis, she pushes herself up off of her stomach and flips over to a seated position, which lasts all of three seconds. Then he's on top of her again, one hand firm on her naked hip and his lips burning against her own.

"Stay," it's whispered into her mouth. He pulls back a few inches and all she can see are his lust darkened eyes as they catch in the low lamplight. "I like having you here…even if it is just for sex."

She ignores the wavering of his voice on _just_, and _tries _to ignore the anxiety that is beginning to tweak her belly in minutely growing increments. _Oh, Sorrell. Don't ruin this._

"My mother is under the delusion that I am still _somewhat_ virtuous, and I'd like to keep up the appearances for as long as possible. If only to delay the inevitable disappointment when she realizes how far I am from the girl she hopes will restore honor to the Amell name," Wil prays that he believes her. Not that she's _scared_ of him or anything, although there _is_ a flare of relief when he pulls away from her and resumes putting on his gauntlets.

"Be careful, anyway. You never know, Bethany might have been more persuasive than I have." Moving stiffly, as if he needs more time to adjust to his cage of leather, Sorrell stands and begins searching the floor for his sheaths and daggers, which had been flung into darkness during Wil's rush to get him out of uniform and into her.

She watches him for a moment before what he said sinks in and, when it does, it's not a realization but an explicit image that freezes her breath into a solid thing that is wedged somewhere north of her heart like a painful, spiky intrusion.

_inky hair spilling across delicate yet strong hands that cradle her head, his lips running over her throat and jaw as he moves against and within her_

"…a million miles away again. And someplace _terrifying_, I might add," Sorrell's back to being friendly and Wil has never been more intensely grateful for his good nature than she is now. "Oh, _Maker_. You're picturing it, aren't you? _Awkward_."

_If it were only _awkward_, I don't think I'd feel quite so much like _dying_ right now. _

"We shared a room with our brother for a few years…we have a secret knock," Wil blinks several times and, when that doesn't work, she sits up and frowns. "Besides, Bethany barely knows him and he's…"

Sorrell cocks his head in confusion as she fails to finish her thought. When almost a minute passes in silence, he gives up.

"If you're blind the next time I see you, I shall refrain from _I told you so_, even if it means biting my tongue in two," he plants a chaste kiss on her forehead even as his hand slides down to give one breast a playful squeeze. "And there better _be_ a next time."

He follows with a very unchaste kiss on the lips and leaves her to wash and dress on her own.

It's only when he's gone that she even wonders why he needs to keep his dingy little room at the Loon when he could sleep for free in the guard barracks.

* * *

><p>It's still dark when Wil gets to her square, but a few of the vendors who serve the early morning workers are already setting up. One cart in particular catches her eye, and she approaches the crooked wooden structure with interest.<p>

"Mikhail! You're serving pastries now?" She's holding up the edge of a still warm towel that has been draped across three twine baskets. Within each are an array of fruit tarts and muffins and it all smells _unreasonably_ delicious.

Mikhail, with his tangle of coal colored hair and well-worn skin could be any age over fifty, is hunched over a basket of freshly boiled eggs. It's his standard offering to those who make their way past him as they trudge to the docks or the foundries. According to Gamlen, Mikhail keeps his chickens locked up in coop on the roof of their building to protect them from thieves and perverts, but Wil has never wandered up there to check the veracity of those claims.

"Yes, pastries," he's pulling out the eggs that have cracked on their journey downstairs. "My daughter's husband is dead on the sea, and she and her children live with us now. Marya bakes to earn extra coin so they can have a place of their own soon."

"I'm sorry about your son-in-law," Wil's examining a succulent looking puff covered in cherries. "How much?

"I don't know. Have you been keeping clean?" He looks back at her, one eyebrow raised with suspicion, since she probably wouldn't be out before dawn _were_ she keeping clean, and then he roars with laughter when she drops the towel and makes as if she's walking away. "I should not reward your bad behavior, but five for a silver."

It's steep, but he knows _she'll_ pay it. Taking a threadbare cloth that he offers, she picks out three apple tarts, one that looks like it has raspberries and the cherry thing she'd been eying earlier. Keeping her attention on Mikhail, who has returned to his task at the egg basket, she leans across his cart and surreptitiously drops a single sovereign into his empty coin basket and ambles off with breakfast for her family.

_And Anders._

He's on the steps where he'd been the night before, sitting with his elbows resting on his knees and appearing for all the world like a man who'd not slept in years.

She settles beside him and holds out an offering of food. "You can have Gamlen's."

"Not Bello's?" He takes the smallest of the apple pasties. "Now that I've actually met your uncle, I understand why he ranks last."

"Ah, so now I know why you look so haunted," Wil covers the rest and sets them on the step, positioned in between them like a wall. _A tiny, delicious wall._ "Was he everything you'd hoped he be?"

Anders snorts and takes a bite of his tart. After chewing for few seconds, he admits, "He pulled my hair and told me that he'd hate to find out that I had sang for anyone else. Also," he swallows and then cups his hand to his mouth to test his breath. "I think I might have gotten drunk just by _breathing_ near him."

"Hmmm," her lips pull up into a crooked smile. "When Aveline was staying with us she woke up to him raiding her pack. Turns out he had every single pair of smalls she owned shoved into the waistband of his pants to protect him from 'The Ones With Eyes'. Aveline spent the next few days camped out in the Keep until the captain accepted her application into the guard."

"Obviously being a weird drunk is an easy way to get rid of unwanted houseguests," the tart is gone and Wil is tempted to offer him another when he chews on the end of his finger as of he'd forgotten to stop once he ran out of food and hit flesh.

"You don't need to do this, Anders. Aveline and I have already worked everything out."

If he's startled by the sudden shift in topic, he doesn't show it. "I still feel like I owe you an explanation, though. For what I did."

"Fine, fine. But I'm in a fairly good mood right now, Anders. Try not to ruin it, ok?" Wil is mostly kidding, but the slightest flicker of something like jealousy darkens his eyes before he can turn away.

"Justice didn't want me to help you," his fingers pick at the knees of his black trousers and he can't look at her. "He thinks I'm wasting my time with you, he also thinks you're dangerous-"

"Care to guess where my good mood is heading?" Wil knows as she says it how testy she sounds, but she really does _not_ want to hear how much some asshole spirit hates her. _Again_.

He appears pained by her reaction and _that's_ not what she wants either.

"He's singleminded, Wil. And impatient. Every second I'm not doing something to help mages or the refugees is a second wasted in his view. _I_ don't feel that way, which is why I'm here. I want you to know that I destroyed the body because I was afraid of what might happen to you. Even if I could get past Justice to help you, the corpse of a perfectly healthy young man with no signs of injury would raise eyebrows...suspicion. They'd start poking around, or have you followed-"

"Aveline wouldn't do that," Wil's stomach, though, is roiling because she knows what he says is true. Or it would have been, had she not been able to convince Aveline to help her.

"I know that _now_, but I couldn't risk it," his voice is low, and she finds herself leaning towards him to better hear what he has to say. She's minding the distance between them, though. "Your family depends on you. What would happen to them if you were arrested? Howlong would Bethany remain free? You're mother _cares_ for you...how would she react if she lost _all_ of her children?"

_So this _is_ about Bethany._ Her hands tighten around the edge of the step beneath her, the stone irregularities pressing painfully into her flesh. She doesn't know what bothers her more- that he has a valid point or that he thought it was in any way acceptable for him to manipulate the events of _her_ life based on _his_ interpretations of her duty to her family.

"Listen. I'm not mad," she tries as hard she can to sound measured. "But I don't think you understand- I'm nothing. I have no money or status to protect me. The _only_ thing that kept me out of trouble this time is the fact that the Captain of the Guard and I happened to have met on the worst day of our lives and she respected the fact that I came forward. But I can't count on our friendship to shield me from the law, and I don't want it to. That boy shouldn't have been allowed on the streets with a sword, but he didn't deserve to _die_. Yet he did, because of _me_-"

"It was an _accident."_

"That doesn't mean that I get to walk away and leave his family to fret and wonder what happened to him! Otherwise he's just like any other bandit or slaver that dies at my hands. I need those lines, Anders, lines that I _cannot_ cross...," she's surprised by the bright pressure behind her eyes, and the way the square is gone blurry in front of her. "And now I have this _thing_ that is scary as fuck and I don't know what to do with it-"

"I _do_, though. Let me help you. Please," his hand is close to her own on the step, the pastries not doing their job for some reason. "Because you're _not_ nothing, Wil."

He stretches one pinkie to bump into hers and then withdraws. It's the tiniest thing, especially considering what she'd just gotten up to with Sorrell, but turns inside her in a way she can't quite comprehend at that moment, sitting on the stairs in Lowtown as the sky above them lightens from depthless black to sapphire that glows rose at the edges. It simultaneously calms her and makes her aware of every single thing she's feeling

_concern, confusion, frustration, sorrow, self-loathing, fear, apprehension, appreciation, hunger, cold, anxiety, long-_

"So do these powers come with that helmet with the horns?" She wraps her arms around her knees and gazes back at him. He's got a faint, sad smile twitching at his lips.

"Why am I not surprised you asked me that?"

"Because you know I like awesome things?" Then she gets an image of a powerful figure striding through a wall of flame and magic. "It reminds me of Flemeth. Did I ever tell you-"

She doesn't continue because he's gone pale _paler_ and his eyes are so wide she's almost afraid they might fall right out of his head.

"You've got to be..._Flemeth_," head shaking, he seems like he's trying to convince himself of something and failing. "_That_ seems fairly improbable."

"Why? Because she's supposed to be a myth?" Wil reaches into her pocket, her fingers finding the amulet with little difficulty. It had been pressed forever cool against her right hip for almost a year, its shape like the Guardian Star as familiar as breath by now. She holds it out to him, knowing he'll recoil because _everyone_ recoils. And he does, but Justice also surfaces for the briefest of moments, an aura of blue and the sharp scent of rain that lingers between them as she draws her hand back and begins to trace the engraving on the front of the flat piece of bronze. A leafless tree. Bethany had asked what it meant, but Wil doesn't want to know. What she sees in it is a second chance and, these days, expectations deferred. "We'd be dead if it weren't for her. I'm supposed to take this up to Sundermount...in exchange for getting us away from the darkspawn."

"Hopefully there's not an expiration date on that bargain," still slightly dazed, he leans a bit closer, although his hands are tucked between his thighs and locked in by his knees. "But...I was told Flemeth had been killed."

Wil remembers the woman, the witch. She was at once the most real and surreal thing she'd ever witnessed, bizarrely out of place yet so substantial in her presence that Wil and Aveline both were waking up with her demented laughter echoing in their heads well after their arrival to Kirkwall.

"Who could kill the Witch of the Wilds? She's not exactly your standard issue daft old crone. Powerful, clever...and able to turn into a _huge_ dragon. It would take someone of...," Wil's head is suddenly filled with bits and pieces of tavern gossip and the idle chit-chat of the volunteers in Anders' clinic.

_"They said she slew a pair of high dragons to get to them ashes...and then wore their skin as her armor and wielded their bones to fight the Archdemon."_

"Ah," she laughs. "I forgot that Ferelden's just had a hero roll through. Strange...Flemeth mentioned the Wardens when we talked. I wonder..."

Anders is past wondering, his eyes someplace so far away that Wil could probably lean over and kiss him like she's never kissed another human being before and he'd return a few minutes after she'd pulled away with a distracted _hmmm?_

"So apparently there's a templar in Darktown...," she smirks when _templar_ brings him back with a glare. "He was at the Rose, asking about Ninette de Carrac. Jethann didn't seem to think Ninette was a mage, so now I'm curious why a templar would be looking for her."

"Maybe they were lovers?" He moves to stretch his legs out and, as his knees pop, Wil is tempted to ask how long he's been out here waiting.

_Do you really want to know?_

"It's possible. No doubt Ghyslain would be thrilled to discover he was being cuckolded by an elf _and_ a lyrium addict in a skirt," she gathers the pastries into her lap. "Which is why I _will_ tell him if that's the case."

"You can be so evil." Sensing that this conversation is at its close, Anders struggles to his feet, his eyes blinking somewhat delirious as he watches her stand.

"Do you _ever_ sleep?" She offers another tart. "Would you like to come back upstairs to try?"

Although he accepts more food, the crinkling of his nose betrays his unwillingness to join her further than this.

"I need to get back to my clinic. I'm low on poultices and...,"

"No big deal," she interrupts so he doesn't need to excuse himself further. "Depending on how long it takes to track down this templar, I might stop by and look through this book of yours. Maybe I'll hide in the back where I can cry over what I've become without disturbing the patients."

"I don't think Justice would approve of you curling up in my bed, no matter the reason," he tries to smile but his eyes are gleaming with a desperation that causes Wil to be hit by twin pangs of guilt and anger. _Fuck Justice_. She wishes she could say it. _But I doubt he'd appreciate the sentiment, seeing as he hates me already. _

"I could always sit on the ground, or make scary faces or something," she demonstrates the faces. "And it's not like sitting on a bed is a gateway into something that Justice would find distasteful or distracting or _whatever_. I _am_ capable of self-restraint."

"It's not you that..." he staggers down a few steps before he can give anything more away. "Good luck looking for templars, Wil. Tell Bethany I said thank you. She's a nice girl."

"And I'll let Gamlen know you said good-bye," Wil's tongue has gone strangely numb, but she can get _this_ out with no problem. "And I promise I'll never tell him that you called him a weird drunk. Or ate his tart."

* * *

><p>The templar is nothing like what she expected.<p>

"I don't know...I thought Ninette had a type. A pointy-eared, _young_ type."

Emeric raises one charcoal eyebrow and confusion is clear in his blue-green eyes. "I don't understand-"

"Oh, it's just that..." Wil's breath catches as she feels a stabbing along her side. They'd just ended an assault on the templar, and she's not quite collected enough to be talking. "Ninette seeks pleasure with men who aren't her husband and you _aren't_ her husband yet you _are_ looking for her. I assumed that-"

"Preposterous," his voice remains level, but his shoulders roll back in a clear indication that the mere _idea_ makes him distinctly uncomfortable. "I came to Ninette's disappearance through a mage named Mharen. She escaped from the Circle last month."

"And you suspect...what? Foul play?" Ignoring Bethany clearing her throat behind her _You're the one who insisted on coming along, Beth _Wil can't help but needle a _little_. "Because that's the _only_ reason _anyone_ would want to leave a prison?"

"Hmmph," he waves off her insult of the Circle. "Mharen was loyal. Older, rational. The only thing we could think of was that she'd left to meet a suitor. We never saw anyone, but lilies arrived for her shortly before she disappeared."

"You know, I had a friend who disappeared once," Varric's already laughing at his own story. "Turns out he got _really_ drunk...was under my bed the whole time!"

Emeric just stares and Wil turns to fix him with a look of _saying odd and possibly inappropriate things is _my_ job, Tethras._

"What?" He shrugs. "Suit yourself. It was hi_larious_."

"Right...so how does a missing mage lead you to a missing _Orlesian_?"

"Mharen wasn't the only missing woman- there were two others. The guards seem to think it's just coincidence, but I refused to believe it so. But I'm starting to think they were right after all. This investigation has been nothing but a waste of my time."

"Oh, now you won't get far in life with _that_ attitude!" Wil smiles. "But, since I hate it when _I_ lose things, I'm willing to pick up where you left off."

The templar shifts and eyes her with suspicion before realizing that, despite her tone, she's incredibly serious in her offer to help.

"Well...yes. I'd hoped that I might be able to save someone's life with this investigation, but I'm realizing more and more every day that I'm too old for this sort of danger," he reaches into his pack and withdraws a leather journal. "This is all the information I've been able to gather. It's yours now. I only ask that you keep me updated, no matter what you find. I'll be waiting in the Gallows. Maker watch over you...hopefully He'll help you succeed where I have failed."

He leaves Wil behind to flip through the journal while Varric and Bethany begin checking the dead raiders that surround them. Emeric's notes are exhaustive- Mharen's routines are outlined for both days that she instructed and days that she did research, he has maps drawn of the foundry where her phylactery had led him and there's even a section devoted to Ghyslain and Jethann, including a humorous note in the margin: _Orlesian milk sandwich? Check Cultures in library._

"You know, Mina," Bethany's kneeling over a female corpse, her hands buried in the pockets of her baggy pants. "We haven't made it to the Amell vault yet..."

Wil snaps the book shut and shoots her sister a bemused glance.

"Is this why you wanted to come along with me? So I couldn't put off breaking into the estate any longer?" The journal gets tossed into her pack and she settles in over her own dead body, her hands running down his still warm torso and feeling for hidden weapons or secret storage.

"And here I thought it was because she was desperate to see more of me," Varric's frowning down at the edge of his duster, which is splashed with scarlet. "Making up for lost time with her favorite dwarf."

"Can't it be both?" Bethany stands and folds her arms across her chest. "I also wanted to get out of the apartment...and Anders does well enough on his own."

"Whoa. Let's take a step back there, Sunshine," Varric's hands are up. "I really don't think you should be taking any inspiration from _Blondie_."

"I agree with Varric on this one, Beth. Anders isn't exactly an ideal role model for the _aspiring_ apostate, much less one who has managed to avoid detection for nineteen years."

"What your sister is trying to say is- don't do anything he does. _Ever_."

"_Never_ ever," Wil adds for emphasis. "And, besides, Anders isn't on his own, really. He hides in his clinic most of the time unless we summon him out. Hardly living the way _you're_ imagining."

Bethany's expression has softened into something resigned and Wil knows she's thinking, as usual, about all the ways their lives would better if she weren't a mage and didn't exist in such fear of the templars. _Dammit, Bethany. You know that _I_ don't care._

"But _sure_...there's _really_ nothing stopping us from breaking into the estate tonight," Wil stands to brush dust off her knees, which does nothing to make her blood-splattered pants any less filthy. "And maybe Anders will join us. The entrance isn't too far from his clinic and, if either of us happens to drop almost-dead from our collected injuries, he can fix us right up!"

"I bet he loves doing that," Varric's head shakes slightly. "Because he has nothing better to do than follow the Hawke sisters around, patching them up so they survive to fight another day."

* * *

><p>"I mean, it's not like I have anything better to do, right?" There's a flare of magic at Wil's shoulder followed by the pressure of a needle piercing her skin. Her teeth press into the edge of her lip to squelch any pained noises that might escape. Despite Anders' attempts to dull or numb, the area around the gash is incredibly tender. "I think you need to take some lessons on not getting cut open. Or crushed"<p>

"Or stabbed," Bethany adds helpfully. "Check out her shoulder."

Bethany and Varric are sitting together on a cot. The will left behind by Bethany and Wil's grandparents is rolled neatly between them while they examine a portrait of Leandra that Wil had found in the vault. Bethany had been fairly dumbstruck by the image and Wil's surprised she's been able to pay attention to anything outside of Varric's few comments on her resemblance to the woman in the picture.

"I noticed that scar," Anders' finger presses it and comfort seeps into Wil's skin seconds before the needle bites again. "When did _that_ happen?"

"When I was smuggling," she tries to sound normal, which is difficult considering she's holding a scratchy sheet over her breasts so Anders could work unobstructed and what he's doing hurts so _very_ much. _At least he's keeping his touch professional._ "Actually, you're probably the only reason it didn't get infected."

He hesitates on the next stitch. Even if she can't see him, she knows he's trying to remember having helped her before she'd shown up at his clinic asking about Grey Warden maps.

"Don't worry, you had no idea. An elf would have shown up here after midnight, with burnt hands?"

"I don't recall-"

_jab_

_Andraste's _ass_ that hurts._

"Wait. Purple eyes? Scar?"

"Yep, that's Sorrell," Wil feels strange talking about him, to anyone. Bethany knew him, of course, and Isabela and Fenris had met him, but it's still an idea that she's not entirely comfortable with, especially considering how plainly he'd spoken about wanting her around more often. "You sent him away with a poultice for me. It was pretty amazing."

"I remember he told me he had a friend who was too stubborn to come by on her," his entire palm is pressing on her back and she has to brace herself for the sharp prick that she knows will perforate the otherwise solid wall of comfort inside her. "I should have put it together that night after the Chantry. How many insanely headstrong women are there who go around getting themselves injured and expect to just walk it off like nothing happened?"

"So is Sorrell _the_ elf, Hawke?" Varric looks up from her mother's portrait. "Isabela was raving about three of them this morning. The broody one, the gigolo and the guard. Said you were insane for not trying to-"

"YEOUCH!" Nothing could have kept _that_ from forcing itself out. Wil shifts to glare at Anders only to see that he's stepped away to his basin. "I think _someone_ has my skin confused with a pair of split leather pants."

"My hands are covered in _your_ blood. It's surprisingly difficult to hold on to _anything_ right now," he's speaking into the corner. "And you keep moving."

"I keep talking, you mean," she goes back and resettles on her elbows, head down to hide the small smile that has decided to play at the corners of her mouth. _You're the _worst_, Wilhelmina Hawke._ "And Sorrell's not _the_ anything."

"Does _he_ know that, Mina?" Bethany raises one dark eyebrow. "He didn't seem to last night."

"He just wanted to get laid, Beth," Wil doesn't even bother to coat it with niceties and is rewarded with absolute revulsion that flashes across her sister's face. _Again, the worst. _"He _knows_."

"Changing the _subject_," Varric appears almost as horrified as Bethany. Pointing to the portrait, "Are we sure that this woman is your mother, Hawke? You look nothing like her."

"Mina looks like Father," her finger tracing the image, Bethany's voice has gone wistful. "I used to be jealous that all I got was his magic."

Wil's heard this before and it always makes her laugh. Tonight though, laughing is painful. Her chuckle is followed immediately by a low moan and Anders is back with ice cold hands to numb the area around the gash.

"You were jealous until you realized that you were The Pretty One," Wil's talking now to distract herself from the resumption of stitching. "That _had_ to soften the sting of not having a nose that looks like it might have been broken a few times or being mistaken for a boy until you turned sixteen."

"Oh, it did," Bethany shoots her a wicked smile, repayment for forcing her to think about Sorrell like _that_.

"How did your parents even meet, Hawke? I mean, a noblewoman and an apostate? Something tells me they didn't move in the same social circles," Varric's eyes are bright with the prospect of a good story. "Never mind the _stigma_."

Anders makes a small _amused_ sound that only Wil can hear. She waits for him to say something and, when he doesn't, she answers Varric's question herself.

"Father wasn't just an apostate, he was also a mercenary. He was in Kirkwall shadowing a Fereldan lord who was suspected of brokering bad trade deals in the Marches. He met Mother one night when she was out walking Hightown-"

"She had just gotten in an argument with her parents, and was too upset to realize that she had stumbled into a trap set to ensnare a visiting dignitary," Bethany takes up the story with relish. "Father forced her into cover while he took out the lord. When it was all over, he worried that she might call for the guards, or even attack him."

"Fortunately for him, it turned out that our mother had a bit of a danger _fetish_," Wil always found this part strange, considering how cautious their lives had turned out to be, excepting for the obvious fact of their existence. "She'd been sheltered, and he was handsome and exciting. He'd been running for a few years, after having lived in the Circle most of his life, and she wasn't the sort of women he was meeting as a mercenary. So he decided to court her. Like you do."

"With flowers and everything?" Varric's head shakes in disbelief when Bethany nods. "Stones run in your family, Hawke."

"_Romantic idealism_ runs in my family," wincing as Anders draws the thread tight to pull the wound closed, Wil can't help but see so much of their predicament as the inevitable results of that young love left unchecked. "We're just lucky things held up for as long as they did."

"There was a party involved," Bethany inclines her head towards Varric. "Father was disguised as an Orlesian and it was all _very_ romantic. I'll tell you some night when Mina isn't around to point out how many ways Father was endangering both their lives just to see her one last time."

"I was trained by the man himself to notice things like that," Wil mutters as Anders pulls her into a seated position so he can secure a bandage around her shoulder.

"So you think you're father should have minded his place as an apostate?" He's talking to her alone, his hands winding the linen wrap to hook around her neck and under her armpit.

"Not just an apostate- a _mercenary_ apostate who'd been seen using magic by the city guard and was _literally_ running from them. If he'd been wrong about how well they were tracking him, they could have captured them both," Wil lowers her head."It wasn't the _wrong_ thing to do, but it certainly wasn't the _smart_ thing, either."

Anders remains silent after this, securing the bandage with a metal clip and tilting his head towards the back room where she can change into her tunic without inadvertently flashing anyone.

He wasn't misleading her when he'd intimated that his room contained nothing but his bed. Well, his bed, a small chest of drawers that doubled as a bookshelf and a tub that had been wedged into the space at the head of his cot. Pulling the door closed behind her, Wil is almost immediately consumed by sadness over how...well, _sad_ it all is.

This is Anders' home, but there is nothing amongst the books on his dresser that indicates his love of cats or his sense of humor. There are no mementos collected or portraits hung on the walls. His cot is covered by a thin blanket of the type she and Carver had been given at Ostagar and only a small pillow, encased in yellowing fabric and embroidered in a language Wil cannot read, _Eine katze mit handschuhen fängt keine mäuse,_ signifies that this belongs to a _particular_ person and isn't meant for any patient who needs additional privacy.

At the foot of his cot are two more books. Wil recognizes the tome on dragon cults, the sight of it sending her stomach into a cold spiral. The other is smaller, thicker, and unornamented save for a black dragon in flight on its spine and four strange black lines on the cover.

"_Another_ book on reaving?" She picks it up _hopefully more scholarly than..._"Oh."

It's a book of poetry. _Love poetry? _Lust_ poetry..._Wil bites her lip as she reads a few verses. _This seems like something _Isabela_ would write._ Some of the pages are torn, some have writing in the margins _I thought of this one outside of Our Lady...if only we'd been alone..._ the few at the center are burned out completely and Wil realizes, with a jolt, that the four lines on the front are finger imprints seared into the cover. She runs her thumb over the markings, paying close attention to the points of pressure, and it's easy enough to figure out what happened...

_"He's singleminded, Wil. And impatient. Every second I'm not doing something to help mages or the refugees is a second wasted in his view."_

_Anders can't even read naughty verse without Justice interfering?_ The thought seizes and yanks on her in a way that nothing else he'd said about his situation had. She returns the book to where she found it.

_This is his home...this is his _life_. _

"You deserve _better_, Anders," she tells the door before opening it to rejoin Bethany and Varric in the clinic. They'd torn into her grandparents' will, and now they're competing with each other to share with her what they'd found.

It falls on uncomprehending ears, however, because Anders is beyond them, holding himself in with his arms over his stomach. It's clear from the lines deepening around his amber eyes that he'd overheard what she'd said to his ghost of an existence.

He'd heard what she said, and very much disagreed.

* * *

><p><strong>Note from SF:<strong> Thank you everyone for reading and reviewing! If I didn't respond to your review this week, it's because I tried and the site wouldn't let me. I apologize so hard!

And, for the curious: "A cat in gloves catches no mice."


	12. Crossing

"So, Milady Sunshine," Varric leans a stubbled cheek against his palm and looks across his table at Bethany. "What's your first act as a noblewoman going to be?"

"I can tell you what I'd _like_ it to be..._Sunshine_."

Giggling, Bethany shoots a quick glance towards Isabela, who is playing a leisurely game of Wicked Grace with Wil. The younger woman has been ebullient ever since she and Wil had presented their mother with proof that her elopement with their father had been forgiven. Wil can't quite puzzle it out, but somehow the knowledge that their grandparents didn't outright _hate_ them seemed to have settled something within her sister.

_Did she really think _that_ poorly of herself that one line of acknowledgement from people she'd never met can mean so much to her? _Whatever it was, not even Wil's ongoing attempts at expectation management, nor Isabela's unsubtle remarks, could dim her mood.

_Oh, well. She deserves the fun. And who knows? Maybe one day we really _will_ get the estate back. And I will marry Flapsy and Cardwin and we'll all live happily ever after._

Seeing that Wil isn't going to rebuke anyone, Bethany flips her hair over her shoulder and smiles.

"A noblewoman with no money and no titles? Can you call yourself a noblewoman if you wake up with your sister in your bed because a rat ran across her pillow?"

Isabela smirks over her cards. Wil, anticipating the smirk, pre-emptively shuts her down with dangerously narrowed eyes before anything _unseemly_ can be said.

"I think getting a job should be my _first_ concern...," Bethany's hands wrap around the tankard of cider in front of her. "Maybe something with consistent hours and a lower body count."

"_Practical_," Varric snorts and shakes his head. "You can't think like that! Practicality is for peasants, Sunshine. I'm looking for something frivolous to celebrate your recovered status. Something that will really help it sink in that you're no longer the lowest rung on the ladder."

"Ah, I see," she appears thoughtful, her teeth digging into a lip freshly painted with rose-colored rouge that Wil had bought for her a few weeks earlier as _a sorry you're stuck in the apartment with Gamlen all the time_ present.

She'd not worn it at all until they'd uncovered the will.

"For example," Varric holds his hands up, spreading them slowly as if he's attempting to frame a mental portrait. "The marketplace. The _Hightown_ marketplace, where the vendors treat your sister like she's trash-"

"Do they?" Wil pushes her lower lip out in a fake pout. "I always thought _...girl_ was a term of endearment! I...think you have _broken_ my heart, Varric."

"Ignore your sister," he whispers it behind his hand.

"Done!"

"So where were we? The Hightown market...they see you and call you _Fereldan_ with a dismissive shrug. So what can _you_ do? You can refuse to speak to them directly, choosing to go through _me_. You can ask for the price on their most luxurious item then, no matter _what_, say you refuse to shop there because _obviously_ if they can't even bother to price out the peons, their wares aren't good enough for _you_-"

"I hope you're keeping track of these, Isabela," Wil frowns down at her cards. _Why do I even care? She's going to pull better ones out of her ass. Literally. From her ass._ "I might try a few on Hubert."

"Or, and this is _my_ favorite," Varric continues as if Wil'dnot spoken. "You should complain that they don't have any Orlesian silk that matches your _eyes_. It forces them to look at you, to acknowledge that you are there and disappointed in _them_."

"But what if they _do_ have Orlesian silk that matches my eyes," Bethany is being borderline, and adorably, flirtatious. "What do I do _then_?"

Laughter warms Varric's voice as he responds, "You demand royalties for letting them use your eyes as inspiration for their silks, of course!"

"Of course!" Positively giddy, Bethany sinks back into her chair with a happy sigh. "Of only...but I think I'd feel far too guilty doing any of those things! Maybe I'll just buy a new pair of boots instead."

"In which case, we should drag your sister along with us...get her into footwear that _isn't_ older than the four of us combined," Isabela's fingers tap against her necklace and one eyebrow goes up in consideration. "You're out of coin, aren't you, Hawke?"

"About five hands ago!" Wil throws her cards down while offering the pirate a sunny smile. "Are you saying that I can't _charm_ my way out of debt?"

One sable eyebrow inches up and pulls the corner of Isabela's mouth with it. "Oh, I imagine you could-"

"_Please_ don't," they'd finally gone too far for Bethany. "It's bad enough that I can't look at Sorrell or peaches without getting uncomfortable, I don't need Isabela ruined for me, too."

"How has she not ruined herself already?" Fenris appears from nowhere and slumps into the seat next to Wil, his hand reaching automatically for the half-empty bottle of sangria at her elbow.

"_Cup_," she pushes a clean tumbler towards him and catches him smirking beyond his curtain of hair. "Once you've finished that off, we should go and get this over with."

"Don't think you're getting away that easy, Hawke," there's danger in Isabela's voice. "I think I could definitely have another whiskey, and your sister and Varric are sitting with empty mugs in front of them...I think you should fetch us one more round."

She then begins to gather the cards from where they'd thrown them, her experienced fingers a blur as they straighten the deck and begin reshuffling.

"O...kay," Wil stands, her mind flipping through all the ways that this seemed _way_ too easy, considering the drinks would cost less than a dozen coppers and she owes Isabela at _least_ three gold. "I can...get your drinks for you? One whiskey and two cid-"

"Naked. You have to be naked," Isabela's eyes gleam up at her. "To the bar and back. _Naked_."

"I don't know if that's the _best_ idea, Rivaini. The morning regulars at the Hanged Man aren't exactly wll-known for their restraint. I'd hate to see the ensuing bloodbath if one of them grabbed something that Hawke didn't _want_ them to grab."

"That's what makes it fun," her dark eyes turn to Wil. "Isn't that right, sweet thing? Or is this like the Rose again? Have I _completely_ misjudged you?"

Wil waves their concerns and doubts aside, her blouse already coming off. Isabela expects her to find the whole thing mortifying, but Wil had spent almost a month in a soldier's camp in Ostagar. After two nights of choking on her and Carver's combined stench, visiting the outdoor baths, which had intimidated her beyond all reason when she'd _first_ seen them, became first a necessary evil and then a welcome comfort after long days spent scouting in the Wilds.

Besides, the last time she'd let the prospect of being seen naked bother her, a few days earlier in Anders' clinic, it had ended up being really, really depressing.

"Mina, do you have to do that with such..._gusto_?" Bethany's eyes are on the ceiling as her sister wriggles out of her trousers, although it's less to avoid Wil's ass and more to avoid seeing the others _not_ avoiding Wil's ass.

"Yep!" Wil folds her arms over her chest, completely nude save for the bandage that winds around her neck and shoulder. "One whiskey and two ciders? What about you, Fenris? You're making short work of that sangria."

"Hmm," he bites the edge of the tumbler, his eyes just slightly off from meeting her own. "I think I'm fine for now."

"You're not going to walk around without boots, _are_ you?" Isabela is far less subtle about where she looks, although why she'd be interested in Wil's lank when her own body is so fascinatingly lush is a mystery. "Who _knows_ what's on the floors outside of Varric's sanctuary."

"Broken glass, stale vomit, teeth, sawdust..." Varric's lips push out in thought.

"Piss," is Fenris' contribution.

"Whatever the drunks track in from Lowtown," Bethany returns her gaze to her sister. "And they're not always careful to avoid the piles left in the street.

"Also, splintery," Wil frowns. "But wearing _just_ my boots is borderline fetishy...and Fenris gets by without shoes."

"Elves are tougher than humans, Hawke. Aaaaand more accustomed to walking through shit."

"I'll be fine," Wil steps out with confidence, although her fineness is tested by the strange little man who is always wondering the hall outside of Varric's room, his eyes restless and his fingers forever picking at invisible threads on his shabby tunic. Today he actually stops and stares, his eyes running down the length of her before they linger raptly at her knees. _Creepy_.

"We're getting thirsty in here!" Isabela's voice pushes her to the stairs and down into the main room, where one pair of eyes becomes almost twenty, but many of them are already compromised by the tavern's half-price pints. Seeing that her nakedness barely registers on most of their faces makes it surprisingly easy for Wil to wind her way to the bar, her feet nimbly avoiding suspicious stains and puddles. The floor is smooth beneath her, which she wasn't expecting, and there's a draft coming from the back rooms that she'd never noticed before but that tightens her skin, making it bumpy from the chill.

"We don't sell clothes here," the barkeep hardly pays her notice, too occupied with wiping lip-prints from recently emptied mugs.

"What if I wanted to drape myself in strategically placed washrags? I hear it's the latest fashion in Orlais," she rests her elbows on the bartop and leans forward. "I'll have a whiskey and three ciders, please. Feel free to use a dirty cup for the whiskey. It's Isabela's."

The barkeep remains at his task as if she'd not said anything. Then, because she won't stop _staring_, "Unless you're hiding copper behind your ears, I really don't think I want to see you getting into your coinpurse."

_Balls_. Her purse was attached to her belt, which is up in Varric's room. "Can I pay you on my way out? I have the-"

His head is already shaking.

_Ballsballsballs._

She spins around to see a familiar face at the door. _I wasn't _expecting_ Anders, but his timing is impeccable._

"Anders! Over here!" She waves, too relieved to pay much mind to the vaguely horrified expression on his face when he notices her. "Hey," he's close enough for her to speak at a normal level. "Do you happen to have ten coppers? I need to pay for drinks and I-"

"Left your money in your pants?" He palms a handful of change from one of his assorted pouches and drops a dozen pennies on the bar. "Add a cider to her order," he instructs the bartender who rolls his eyes but actually starts moving to get her drinks ready.

"Thank you!" Lounging against the bar, she smiles up at him. "I honestly didn't think you'd be joining us today...although you might _not_ be."

"Now I'm confused," his attention remains on the pile of copper, his fingers occupied with arranging the bits in order of cleanliness. "Am I being uninvited?"

"Of course not! It's just...we're taking a bit of a _detour_," she watches his face intently, both curious and concerned about how he'll react. "I need to go to the Gallows."

The lines at the edge of his eye deepen slightly, and the corner of his mouth twitches down.

"So you're helping that _recruit_," there's an accusatory bite to his voice, and _recruit_ receives venomous attention.

"I'm helping his _sister_," Wil scratches along the back of her neck, seeing Macha's desperate sapphire eyes as she spoke of the brother she feared might be in trouble or dead. Despite her wariness of anyone who would willingly hunt mages, Wil understood what the young woman must be feeling. She understood too well, in fact, and could _not_ walk away without agreeing to look into Keran's disappearance. "And besides, it can't hurt for me to have a few templar allies. Just in case..."

It hangs unspoken between them, and his expression softens in understanding of her precarious situation.

"I would beg out, for obvious reasons, but if you plan on going like _that_," he finally turns to nod at her exposed breasts. "I honestly doubt anyone will notice _me_. Or _anything_. To be honest."

"_Oh_," she twists so that she's covered by her arm. "This is temporary."

"So not a lowbrow method of distracting templars from the apostate in your midst?"

"Not at all," she laughs off the idea. The last thing she wanted was a bunch of repressed templars staring her down, torn between disgust, lust and shame. "Isabela cheats at cards."

He smiles, his entire face brightening in that way she's starting to sort of love. _Like? Love. No, _like_. Or maybe really appreciate._ "I don't know if I can blame her, if that's what you're putting up." He lets his eyes fall below her shoulders. "_Freckles_."

_Well, it's certainly not chilly in here _anymore. She curses her nakedness, because she knows that half the bar is going to be able to tell that she's blushing, no matter how low she drops her chin so that her hair falls forward to obscure her face. _Thank the Maker I'm not as white as _Beth_. I'd practically be a beacon up here._

"So," she collects herself before continuing with the tiniest lilt in her voice in an attempt to match his own flirtatious tone. "Are you in?"

He doesn't respond.

She glances up to see him staring at his coins again, his jaw tight and his hands white-knuckled fists against the counter. _Of course. _Frustration burns at her stomach._ Opened and then closed._

"Drinks are ready," the bartender shoves the tray into her arm and scoops up the coppers before Anders, or Justice, can take them back.

"Thanks," she mutters as she slides the tray onto her left palm to hoist above her shoulder. Anders has returned, although it's angsty Anders and not the one who'd allowed himself to smile and tease.

"Should you be doing that? What about your...?"

She pauses to glance back at him. In this position, she is utterly exposed and garnering a substantial amount of attention from nearby tables, if the _sense_ of probing eyes is enough to go by.

"It's _fine_. I've actually served before at the inn in Lothering, you know. Granted, I only had that job for two nights before I was fired for punching the _cook_...but carrying a tray full of drinks isn't exactly strenuous when you swing a sword for a living."

"Then at least let me walk be-" he steps forward, his gaze falling for a moment before cutting sharply to the side. "I'll lead the way."

They make it to the back of the tavern without incident although Wil suspects, from the way the patrons who _do_ try to sneak a look turn back to their beverages as if they've seen something horrible, that Anders' expression is probably set at an intimidating glower.

Just as she begins to ascend to the second floor, nearly finished with Isabela's ridiculous task, she hears the other woman's voice from the top of the stairs.

"Should I be surprised that you showed up just when Hawke was naked and alone?" She smirks down at Anders. "I thought _I_ was the only one who had _that_ particular talent."

"Shut up, Isabela."

"Is this a general talent, or a Hawke specific one?" Wil bounds up the steps easily, years of training her balance keeping the tray above her steady. "Or do I want to know?"

"Oh, _so_ general. And far more useful than it sounds," Isabela takes the tray off of Wil's hand and frowns down at its contents. "I could have swore I asked for a double, and Fenris wanted an ale."

"No, I didn't," he intones from Varric's room.

"Just what I needed," Anders breathes so only Wil can hear it. "The elf."

"Nice try Isabela. I'm _not_ going back down there again," stepping carefully past both Isabela and Anders, Wil scurries the last few feet into Varric's room, much to his and Bethany's consternation.

"You're..._bouncy_." Beth buries her face in her hands so that her next words come out muffled, "Your clothes are on the table. So you don't have to bend over."

"Rivaini tried to hide them twice."

"Thanks, sister," Wil takes them to the sleeping area, drawing the curtain behind her. Listening to the conversation as she dresses, it's clear that Isabela is disappointed with the results of her little ploy.

"I thought for certain there'd be at least one slob fool enough to grope or proposition her," her head pokes past the curtain. "And you weren't blushing enough! You were _supposed_ to be...mmmm. _Pink_ with embarrassment."

Wil sticks her tongue out, "Sorry if I let you down. I have no shame and apparently the folk here would prefer a woman with...a little more to offer."

_Like you_, Wil doesn't speak it, but the pride on the other woman's face indicates it was heard nonetheless.

"Well don't worry, you'll be the rage of the Hightown marketplace." Before Wil can ask what, exactly, is meant by _that_, Isabela disappears and then, "Varric! Hawke's bare-assing all over your bed. I think you need to go in and stop her. Feel free to let Bianca...join in the fun."

"Can we _pleeeeease_ not?"

"Don't worry, Sunshine. Hawke's not _that_ stupid."

_What a vote of confidence._ Wil pulls on her shirt, and then freezes. _What the _fuck_ did I just do? And _why_?_

_"Or is this like the Rose again? Have I _completely_ misjudged you?"_

"Isa_bel_a."

From the beyond the curtain, there's the sound of smug laughter followed by a cup being slammed down in something like triumph.

* * *

><p>"Are you certain you want to do this?" Anders himself is growing more visibly uncertain by the minute, which is pushing Wil closer to the edge of her patience. "At least leave Bethany at the docks with Varric."<p>

Her fingers press against her forehead in an attempt to alleviate a headache born the moment Anders had realized Wil intended for her sister to join them on their trip to the Gallows.

_"It's too dangerous. She _will_ be caught, and you will be _arrested, and_ then Vengeance will come out and..."_

_"Start reciting dirty limericks?"_

_"It's not a joke, Wil. Convince her to stay."_

But Bethany had been resolute, defiant even, in her insistence on going. It's a fear she needs to conquer, a test she must to take to prove to herself that she doesn't have to live in dread. And, the more Anders protested, the more she turned Wil and Varric's advice to her against them.

"She knows the risks, Anders..." Wil shields her eyes, the glare from the limestone docks not helping anything. "I'm past the point of forcing her to do anything. Besides, we spent three days in the Gallows when we first arrived in Kirkwall and the sun somehow managed to stay in the sky. All we have to do is behave."

"Simple enough for you," he seethes this through his teeth, less angry than he is wary of Fenris nearby and probably listening. "You don't have a..."

He stops himself. Fenris nods.

"Oh, please continue. I'm interested in hearing how you classify yourself."

Anders ignores him, or at least doesn't respond, and his eyes turn pleading.

"We've been doing this our whole lives, Anders," she tries her hardest to sound reassuring. "It's not my favorite thing in the world, but I know it can be done. Besides, how suspicious do you think they are of people who _willingly_ go _into_ the Gallows? Especially people who are there to _assist_ templars? If we act like we have nothing to hide, they won't go looking for it."

For a second his expression wavers on the edge of frustration, but eventually he relents, his gaze traveling to where Bethany is poised near the water, hands pressed against her stomach in a show of nerves that are betrayed nowhere else. "I know you wouldn't risk her safety. But so help me, Wil, if they touch either of you..."

"They won't," she bumps his shoulder with her own. "The worst part of this entire ordeal is going to be the boat ride."

"Because of anticipation?" His brows draw together in confusion.

"Because I could get seasick in a shallow puddle," her nose wrinkles. "And now you know the _real_ reason why I never talk about the voyage from Gwaren to Kirkwall. I spent most of it with my face in a bucket or hanging over the railing and praying to the Maker to just kill me all ready."

"So maybe this would be a good time to teach you how to meditate," he smiles slightly, although his eyes remain guarded. "As long as you promise not to vomit on my boots. I like _them_ and I don't want to have to hate _you_."

"Oh, _definitely_ promise. The boots are sexy," she flashes teeth.

"_Wil_," it's a mild admonishment, but she can't ignore the fact that now _he's_ the one betrayed by the way his blood colors his skin.

* * *

><p>"You're doing fine, Wil," Anders murmurs, his voice reassuring.<p>

Her stomach lurches, but not enough to bring anything up. _It's_ not even the real problem. The _real_ problem is the way her brain seems to be coated in thick, dull pain and stumbling about her skull like a drunk finding his way home after a bender.

_Inhale._ She draws a deep breath, the air around her sharp with the scent of seawater, tar and Anders. He smells like honeysuckle...and the undercity. It's not the best, but it's familiar nonetheless.

"Five heartbeats...try to slow them down a little more every time."

Doing as instructed, she wonders how it is she's supposed to be slowing her pulse when he's _right there_ next to her, his thigh pressed along her own, his hand hovering near her lower back, and his words coming from a distance that seems not very far away at all.

And where there's words, there's a mouth. And where there's a mouth, there are lips. And lips-

Her eyes open to spare herself from the inevitable end of that particular train of thought and she sees that he's not as close as her mind had lead her to believe. _Had _wanted_ her to believe. _

_Fuck. _

It overtakes her quickly, the brilliant glittering of the water's surface sending a widening jolt through the front of her skull that does everything to upend the contents of her stomach. Fortunately, Bethany is on the other side of her and knows her sister well enough to pull Wil across her lap so that her head just barely clears the side of the boat before anything can burn its way out of her throat.

Cider is absolutely disgusting coming up. She keeps her eyes closed and hangs her head so her chin is pressed to wet wood. Bethany is there to hold the longest part of her hair away from her face. It's comforting, but the boat won't stop _moving_ and it happens one more time, a tightening of her abdomen and the straining of her throat muscles, before things go calmer within her, although her head is still careening.

"A middling effort at best," Bethany pulls the scarf from around her neck and runs it across Wil's brow to wipe away sweat. "A bigger breakfast would have yielded more impressive results."

"Gross," Wil turns and slides into the bottom of the boat, allowing Bethany to settled close but in between her and Anders. "I don't have any on me, do I?"

She makes a show of examining Wil's face and hair before confirming that Wil managed to avoid making a mess of herself.

"Good...but I think I'll stay down here for now," she offers Bethany her hand and Bethany takes it as the Gallows loom ever closer, her fingers tightening as the boat lurches forward. "Everything will be fine. If you see any of them looking too closely, just smile and stick out your chest."

"_Mina_."

"It worked in Lothering," Wil's voice goes breathy. "Oh, there's Ser Bryant. I hope he doesn't _notice_ me."

"I would _never_-" Bethany catches Wil's slow, knowing, smile. "Maybe once or twice."

"Maybe _lots_." The boat is stopped, and Wil risks looking up. Fenris, Isabela and Varric are already scrambling for the dock while Anders stands staring at the unyielding stone structure that towers above them. It's a prison built on the bones of slaves and used to hold his brethren captive...there's an aura about him. It's his own life and the injustices he'd experienced and seen over his lifetime, the very things that had driven him to think allowing a spirit to enter him would be a great idea if it meant the end of places like this. Wil feels what he feels and to the core- dread, rage, sorrow and self-loathing. "I would never let that happen to you."

Her eyes burn into her sister's, who nods in understanding that the words aren't meant for her alone as she allows Wil, only moments ago kitten weak, to get them both to their feet.

* * *

><p>Isabela and Varric wander off to look at the wares offered by the handful of merchants set up in the Gallows courtyard, although <em>she<em> seems more interested in flirting with a group of recruits who are taking their lunch amongst a cluster of columns just beyond.

Fenris will join them, but first he needs to stare. His eyes remain empty as he observes the bronze statues which decorate the yard and steps of this place. Slaves. Mostly naked, mostly crying or twisting under the yokes of their masters.

"Are they meant to memorialize or intimidate?" He looks to Wil. "Is this condemnation or glorification?"

"I don't know, but it's pretty much the most honest first impression Kirkwall can give."

"Hm. True," his gaze settles on the Gallows proper. "I've heard about your Circle of Magi...but I've never actually been in one. There are far more templars here than I've ever seen in one place. Are you certain it's wise for us to be here...considering who we're with." His head tilts towards Bethany and Anders, both positioned close to Wil.

"It would be _better_ if you didn't ask questions like _that_," Wil scowls.

Anders leans in, his voice coated in sarcasm, "I could throw a fireball or two. Maybe _that_ would help."

"Probably not the best idea, either," she sighs and glances back at Bethany, who is smiling a strange little rictus grin, her eyes bright with panic.

"This seems more like a prison," as if the entire concept of what a Circle might be in a place where the higher authority demonizes magic had never occurred to Fenris. "I wonder if it's more effective than the those in the Imperium?"

"It depends on what effect you're going for," Wil speaks quietly, but with a dangerous edge. This is a conversation that should probably be happening elsewhere. "They're good for making highly educated individuals who consider themselves second-class citizens just for being born."

"Your attitude does not surprise me," Fenris' eyes glitter in response to the fight in her words. "Did your father neglect to tell you how easy it is for mages to turn to blood magic if they think the need is great enough?"

"As easy as it is to resort to a sword?" Anders sounds surprisingly rational. "You don't even _need_ a weapon to kill a man, _you_ have powers that are much like magic. How is that any different...why should you have _your_ freedom?"

"Because I am not controlled by a demon," it simmers with quiet rage, a snarl blanketed in velvet. "A mage can desire power, revenge, _justice_...any cause will do. And then they are lost."

"And those that are lost should be dealt with, rather than _all_ being dealt with because they have the _potential_ to become lost. Treating every mage like a criminal is not the answer, Fenris," Wil swears it like an oath.

"And not every mage deserves the benefit of the doubt, Hawke. I only hope you don't learn that the hard way...but we have gone far astray of what we should be doing, I assume. I am to shop for a new claymore, am I not?"

He is dismissed with a nod, leaving Wil and the apostates to search the yard in tense and nervous silence. There are clusters of templars and mages everywhere, most in deep conversation or lost in a book, or prayer. Very few appear to be standing guard and those that are follow the paths of the Circle mages, distinctive as they are due to their colorful robes and headgear.

"One of these days I'm going to make you two start wearing cowls," Wil finds Bethany's hand; she gives it a reassuring squeeze even as she winks at Anders, who is regarding her with a mixture of curiosity and admiration. "But only the very goofy ones."

"You're so _sweet_, Mina," Bethany tilts her head towards the steps where, a little over a year ago, the Hawke sisters and Aveline had begged to be allowed into Kirkwall. "Isn't that...?"

"Oh! Ser Emeric!" He's distinguished enough to stand out, even from across the yard. Then she remembers what they'd discovered in the foundry where he'd tracked Mharen. "_Oh_. Ser Emeric."

She approaches him and tries to appear upbeat.

"It's you!" Recognition brightens his eyes. "I...do you have news?"

"Yes," she pulls at her pack, wondering what kind of life she's leading that she can go around with bones in her bag and just forget about it in the course of a morning. "I believe..._these_ count as news. I found them in your, uh, foundry. There were also shades about."

Emeric takes the package, his fingers trembling as he pulls the cloth away to expose the remains within. From the way grief creases his forehead, he's come to the same conclusion as she had when she found them.

"These are human bones," he gasps out his sorrow. "Then there is no chance of finding Mharen or the others alive."

"If they're _not_ dead," Wil reasons, "watch out for a bunch of _boneless_ women flopping through the streets."

"_Wil_." She can almost picture Anders covering his face in shame because _fuck my mouth_.

"Show some respect," Emeric's eyes are hard. "What if I was holding someone you loved?"

Wil bites her tongue to keep from shooting off another smart comment, despite the fact that she knows he's right to chastise her.

"No matter," he continues curtly. "You did that which I could not. I assume you will tell Ninette's husband and...lover?"

"Yes," she has the ring in her pack and is uncertain who deserves it more, Ghyslain or Jethann. "Thank you for helping me, Emeric. Hopefully whoever did this will stop while he's ahead, or be caught before he can take another life."

This is actually the right thing to say, and Emeric nods his approval.

"Maker guide you, serah."

He leaves them on their own to figure out which clutch of recruits they should speak to next, and Bethany pokes Wil hard in the ribs. She doesn't need to ask why.

"Those boys over there look especially nervous," Anders nods towards a trio that also includes a young, hawk-faced woman.

"A female recruit," she smiles at Bethany. "Do you reckon she was inspired to join after reading _The Monastery Men_?"

"Ew," she twists her face in thought. "_Maybe_. Might explain why she looks so...surly. I doubt anything could live up to _those_ expectations."

"What in the Maker's name are you two talking about?"

"You really, really do _not_ want to know," Wil ambles towards the group he'd pointed out. _Watch what you say to these guys...they're already on edge._ "So! You guys know a recruit named Keran? His sister is looking for him."

The men exchange glances while the woman stiffens.

"We cannot speak to you, messere," she is exactly as friendly as she appears.

"To the Void with that!" The man closest to her glares, although worry creases his brow. "Keran and the others are missing and the knights aren't doing anything to find them. Perhaps it's time to ask for outside help."

"_I'm_ outside," Wil smiles and prays that she looks trustworthy and _not_ insane. "And you're breaking the rules just by speaking with me...might as well give me the good stuff while we're here!"

The second man, who is impressively mustachio'd, breaks, his voice a conspiratorial whisper. "I hear the Knight-Commander has a new initiation that you have to go through. If you're not strong enough or fervent enough...you don't make it out alive."

"She would do that to her own people?" Bethany gasps.

"And you honestly believe that?" The female templar is chilly. "It's not true. _Wilmod_ came back."

"What?" This is the mustacheless one.

"He did," her expression is smug. "I saw him this morning."

"Maybe this Wilmod can give me information on the other missing recruits," Wil's keeping herself neutral now. The mention of the Knight-Commander and initiations is intriguing yet worrisome. If she were to stumble upon something that Meredith didn't want known outside of her command...well, Wil's life and activities would probably _not_ stand up to scrutiny should she start garnering unwanted attention. But, there _are_ lives in danger... "If you could tell me where I might find him, I just want to ask a few questions."

Sigh. "Wilmod told me he was leaving Kirkwall, just to clear his head," the woman seems suddenly convinced that Wil is here to help them. "I was told by the Knight-Captain not to talk about. He left to follow not too long ago. You might catch up with them if you hurry."

"Fan_tas_tic," Anders fumes as Wil offers her thanks and turns back towards the gate. "We're going to go play nice with the Knight-Captain now?"

"I...maybe?" She chews on the inside of her lip in thought. She'd not heard much about the Knight-Captain, besides the fact that he was Fereldan. "Do you know him? Maybe from the Circle?"

"I suspect that I do," a muscle in his neck twitches. "But...he wouldn't know me."

"So that's good, right?"

From his expression, it's anything _but_ good. Although Wil wants to press, she's forced to hang her curiosity because Varric, Isabela and Fenris are approaching. The men remain empty-handed, but Isabela is carrying a long, narrow parcel wrapped in brown paper.

"Don't ask her what it is, Hawke" Varric winces. "Not if you value your sanity."

"I'm standing in the courtyard of the strictest Circle of Magi in Thedas...what is this _sanity_ that you speak of?"

"Heh. I guess I forgot who I was talking to. Still. _Don't ask_. For _my_ sanity."

"Got it," Wil leads them through the gate to the docks. "So is everyone up for a trip to the country? We have a templar to track down. Another templar, that is. Man, I bet the Knight-Commander gets pissed when she misplaces her templars. I know I would, seeing how objects that _large_ and shiny should _not_ be so easy to lose."

"You're babbling sister," Bethany giggles, clearly relieved that they're on their way out. "Really not looking forward to that boat ride back, are y-"

"HALT."

The voice that commands them is muffled metallic, coming as it is from within a templar helm. Wil manages to maintain her smirk as she regards him in the most nonchalant way she can, considering she's death by panic on the inside. From behind comes the faintest scent of ozone and _Maker help me if he gets us caught. _

"I apologize, ser knight," her voice is sweet as honey. "We were just going to the docks for our return to the mainland."

The head tilts and she catches the gleam of his eyes through the visor slit. It's as intimidating as the Void, even in daylight, and she hates all the advantages he has on her. The weapons, the armor, the facelessness and menacing echo.

"An amulet was reported stolen by the tranquil Celeste," his fingers are at the hilt of his sword, tightening and untightening. "A very _expensive_ amulet."

"Poor Celeste. I imagine if it happens again, she'll be fired. Not that she'll care, of course. I mean, she _can't_ care, nor does she really need a _job_-"

"You're to be searched, " he cuts her off smoothly. "Anyone who refuses will be held here until they relent, or until we find the stolen property."

"Oh, is _that_ all?" Wil smiles in oblivious cooperation, although her stomach has bottomed out and her mind is flailing in an attempt to figure out the best way to approach the situation. _Also pray that Isabela and Varric are both innocent. I'd hate to have to punch either one of them. _"Here," she thrusts her pack at him, glad that Emeric had held onto the bones. The hem of her shirt is pulled up and tucked beneath her chin, as her fingers go to undo the laces of her trousers, "Should I stop at my smalls, or are you guys taking it all the way here?"

"I'm not, uh," from the strangled tone of the templar's voice, Wil is the first to respond so _enthusiastically_ to the process. "Head down the stairs and take a left. You'll see where they're, um...you can _leave_ your breasts in. Ah, laces done. _Clothes on_."

He pushes her pack back into her hands and begins muttering under his breath. It sounds suspiciously like the Chant of Light, but she's not got the damned thing memorized, so it could very well be his favorite cookie recipe for all she knows.

"Wil," Anders is at her heels as they descend. "You _do_ realize that templars can sense magic, don't you? If they're touching us-"

"It's just a pat down, Anders," she doesn't want him to know she's already been to the _if they're touching us_ place and almost blacked out. "There shouldn't be any skin to skin contact and surely you can suppress for a _few_ minutes. Don't freak out yet. _Please_."

There are only two templars waiting for them by the docks, both queasy looking blond men with strangely colorless eyes that brighten when they see Isabela and Bethany approach.

Varric jumps ahead.

"So I hear you're looking for a piece of stolen property," his duster is off. "I always heard the Gallows was the safest place in Kirkwall to be a merchant. Between the templars watching and the tranquils creeping everyone out, the risk is _seldom_ worth the reward. It's why the guild pays the Knight-Commander such a handsome fee for licenses. And, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't negotiations for those coming up next week? I hear Meredith is looking to raise prices again...which might be difficult to justify if word of a _heist_ made its way to the merchants...don't you think?"

The templars share peeved looks with each other before turning back to Varric.

"We's got no idea what's going on between the Knight-Commander and the guilds. We just know what we was told to do," the templar sniffs. "You wouldn't be considering blowing this whole thing out of proportion, wouldja? _Dwarf_."

Varric snorts, holding his hands out in a gesture of_ would _I_ do something like _that_?_

"Of course not, gentlemen," he sounds at once oily and sincere. "However the guild _does_ depend on me to report back when I learn of these sorts of _unpleasant_ situations. If they found out that I was aware of your little breech and didn't tell them..._well_. That could get extremely _unpleasant_ for a lot of people, but especially _me_."

"Right."

"Listen, we just want to get back to Kirkwall without any fuss. How about you do that for us?" Varric's voice lowers and the two templars lean forward to hear him. "Once my friends and I are on that boat, I'll not remember a single thing about a stolen amulet or vendors' licenses."

The templars confer for a few seconds and then nod in unison.

"We'll let you go...but you have to let us search the shifty one first"

Five sets of eyes swing to Isabela, who is frowning but not looking terribly _shifty_.

"The other girl," the chattier of the two strides forward and catches an extremely startled Bethany by the arm.

"_What?_" Wil manages to grab his wrist before he can take a single step back, her fingers digging hard into the gauntlet. She knows he can't feel it through steel and padding, but it gives her a sense of control when everything seems to be unraveling around her. _A templar has your Beth. This is nightmare territory. _"Does she look like a _thief_ to you? I mean, you have the nervous guy, an elf, a _pirate_ with no _pants_ who is carrying a suspicious package and _me_ with my pack...and you're going to search _her_? Really?"

The templar, emboldened by Wil's attention, jerks Bethany forward and out of her grasp. Bethany doesn't cry out, but she's gone bone white.

"It's always the sweet'ns you gots to watch out for, pussycat." His partner runs one gloved finger across Bethany's exposed collar bone and repeats _sweet'ns_ with hint of chuckle. _I'm going to punch both of their moronic faces and keep punching until their own mothers wouldn't be able to recognize them. Then I'm going to _kill_ them._ Wil marches forward and she can feel her blood warming, but it's not just rage or anger that makes it so. This is how it had felt last week, when she'd been so scared for Bethany that the guard had practically shat himself at the sight of _her_.

"Wil," Anders must sense it. "Be careful."

"Mina, just let them-"

"It's not duty right now. They're being jackasses," her eyes narrow and she focuses on the one that holds her sister. There is no valve within her to turn whatever _this_ is on and off, nor is there a physical manifestation of what she's directing at him. It's unknown, unknowable, and out of her control. Therefore, _incredibly_ dangerous. But he's a bastard who has her sister, who has it in his power to take her forever, to make her a prisoner and Wil's entire _life_ is in his hands and she'll be damned to the Void before she lets _that_ happen. "Let her go_._"

Despite what presses against the inside of her skin, her command is as gentle as the waves that break against the Gallows, filling the silence between each syllable with the creaks of wooden boats bobbing on the water. The templar's irises constrict.

"Let. Her. Go." Her heart stutters in misery even as her lips pull back to bare teeth. "_Now_."

There is no doubt as to what she wants. All three in front of her go still the way _anyone_ goes still when confronted with something that inspires nothing less than wordless, mindless _fear._

Even Bethany cannot move for a few seconds. Even _Bethany's_ eyes widen before they are able to squeeze close so she can force herself away from her captor to stumble past Mina into Varric, who is ready with words of comfort as he sweeps her to the waiting boat.

Wil does not know how long it lasts. The templars find themselves eventually, although they are head-shakingly confused as to what happened and why she's in front of them, gasping for breath like she'd just been pulled flailing from the harbor.

"It's okay, Wil," Anders catches her shoulders from behind and her hands go up automatically. She intends to push him away but, instead, her fingers cover his own and she sinks back against him, desperate for whatever momentary comfort or stability his nearness can offer. Besides his heart hammering close to her own, she can feel his breath whispering against the back of her ear, his mouth definitely close enough to touch her if he wanted it to, and she forces herself to think about Bethany's face as she'd staggered past. _She looked at me as if I was something else entirely. An unknown monster and not her Mina._ His voice sounds again, a reassuring murmur as if he can tell that she's being pulled apart inside. "It _worked. _They won't risk their superiors finding out what happened."

As if that's all that matters.

She nods. The templars watch them and she realizes how it must look.

With a brief tightening of her fingers around Anders', she turns and pulls away so they can join the others in the boat and put this damnable episode behind them. Everyone is already settled in, Fenris alone near the back and Isabela and Varric flanking a pale Bethany. She nonetheless tries to smile as Wil boards. Although the tremulous curving of her sister's lips does help to loosen the knot in her chest, Wil remains unnerved, committing to being alone at the rear of the boat, her body angled along the rise of the floor so that her mouth has a clear shot at the water.

The boat shudders beneath her to begin its journey back to Kirkwall. Wil closes her eyes and tries to be lulled by the rocking of the vessel rather than sickened by it.

Wil closes her eyes and tries to breathe the way Anders had shown her- long, steady breaths measured out by heartbeats.

Instead of steady, her breathing is ragged. Instead of measurable, her heartbeats _feel_ erratic.

_"I need those lines, Anders, lines that I cannot cross..."_

Crossed lines. Playing games with Isabela. Arguing about mages' rights with Fenris _in the Gallows_ and with _Bethany_ there. Using her untrained and untried dragon's blood power _weirdness_ against anyone, but especially templars. _Anders_.

"What the fuck are you doing, Wil? Do you even _know_ anymore?" She's the one who says it, but it sounds just like _Carver_. He'd been good at keeping her down when she'd fallen, his blade pressed flat against her back or chest while he gloated out his victory. _But I always got up and came back and he _never_ beat me twice in a row. _

Wil opens her eyes and watches as the Gallows, and the events of that morning, grow distant by increasingly stomach-churning inches.

Yet it somehow feels so much better.


	13. Closed

She and the templar are standing shoulder to shoulder and staring down at the misshapen corpse at their feet.

From the way he's breathing and the incredulity that colors his first words, " Oh, Maker", Wil is guessing that he'd not expected for his sallow-skinned recruit to demon up and summon forth a few of his closest demon friends.

_Demons_. She'd not actually seen a real demon. Well, shades were demons. And Anders. _Technically_. But Wilmod had been a person, but then he wasn't and now he's…

"That is…_disgusting_," her eyes dart away to Anders, who is staring at the Knight-Captain with enough loathing to set the man on fire were he in the mind to do so. She shakes her head, an indication that he really _should_ tone it down a little.

If anything, he glares _harder_.

"I _knew_ he was involved in something sinister," the Knight-Captain's voice has a desperate edge. "But this…is it even possible?"

"It looked...possible," Wil turns back to him and he's exactly the same as he'd been when they'd stumbled on him before Wilmod's transformation: _Handsome_. All nice jaw and broad shoulders. He also looks as if he's not seen a bed for about two years. _Maybe I have an exhaustion fetish._ "_Real_. Do you think he was possessed?"

"Possessed," repeated softly, it's turned over on his tongue. "We normally only worry about mages falling victim to possession." He crouches beside the corpse, his heavily gauntleted hand hovering close but unwilling to make contact. "I _have_ heard about blood mages, or demons in solid form, that could summon others into an unwilling host. But I'd not thought one of our own would be susceptible."

_Of course not._ It wants to come out, but Anders is fit to tear down the sky enough for both of them so Wil presses her teeth into her tongue until something less _inflammatory_ presents itself.

"Considering some of the things I've bumped into around Kirkwall, I can't say a possessed templar is _too_ much of a surprise," she wrinkles her nose. "Although that might paint a rather unflattering portrait of my activities."

"Indeed," the lines around his eyes deepen and then he sighs, as if he can't _not_ be polite even if he really doesn't feel like it. "I am Knight-Captain Cullen. I thank you for your assistance."

His hand comes towards her in a perfectly normal show of manners and Wil just stares for a moment. It's been ages since anyone had offered her _any_ greeting outside of a curt nod or disdainful sniff. She's not certain what to _do_ with it.

"Wilhelmina Hawke," she shakes his hand and pulls her own away quickly. "I have no rank or title, so you can call me Hawke. Or Wil. Or Hel...mina."

"Oh, this is getting good," Varric clearly meant it to be under his breath, but from the way Cullen coughs and twists his head away from her, it might as well have been shouted.

"Uh…I've been...c-conducting an investigation into my recruits," once focused on work, his nerves smooth themselves out. "Wilmod was the first to return. I needed to know what really happened, so I was trying to confront him quietly, and out of sight. I thought threatening him would help…but you saw how that worked out."

They both try their hardest to not re-assess the corpses that surround them.

"So Meredith _isn't_ conducting deadly experiments to test her recruits' faith and fortitude?" Wil blinks. "_That's_ the word around the Gallows."

Scoffing it off, Cullen's eyes roll upward. "That's _preposterous_. Recruits can be worse than a weaving circle with their rumors. They _do_ go through a vigil before they take their arms, but the gravest danger they face there is falling asleep. If they pass during _that_...well, I don't know what to say."

So no _templar_ ritual. But there's shadiness, role-playing and demonic possession involved. _This entire situation is taking a turn for the creepy, Wil. _

"Do you have any ideas what Wilmod _might_ have been up to?"

"More than I had anticipated, apparently. Wilmod has never taken our rules as seriously as he should. We must _watch_ mages, not be their _friend_," his eyes darken on this point. _Slightly less handsome now._ "I suspected that Wilmod was meeting up with some of the mages who'd escaped from the Circle. It would have been unfortunate, but better than _this_."

Her lips turn down at the corners and she knows she should just nod and play along. He's not said anything about Anders, for one thing, and he'd have to be blind to have not noticed all the _lightning_ flying around during their skirmish with the demons. Had Bethany been there, Wil might have kept her mouth shut _despite_ the fact that it would sting so much more. Without her, though, she's far more reckless.

"Some of _my_ friends are mages," her eyes are narrowing into dangerous slits and only self-restraint keeps her rooted to her spot. She doesn't want a _fight_. Not _really_. "Are you saying that I must _watch_ them? Why? It seems my companion with the _gigantic_ _sword_ poses just as much of a threat."

"Don't drag _me_ into this, Hawke," Fenris interjects. "I agree with _him_."

"I was at the Circle tower in Ferelden during the Blight," the Knight-Captain's face falls at the memory. "Everyone one I knew, templars and mages alike, tortured and slain by abominations. I saw firsthand how templars' trust and leniency can be rewarded."

"Trust and leniency?" Disbelief ripples through Anders' words and breaks them. "Is _that_ what you call it?"

_Subtle, Anders._

Fortunately, Cullen appears too lost to the memory of some distant horror to hear the admission in Anders' outburst. "I still have nightmares of Uldred's depravities."

_Damaged._ His face is a mask of grief with flickering rage. _I wonder if that's why he's in Kirkwall. Keep all the crazies to one city._ Whatever it was, they'd hit a bump in their progress.

"Well," _don'tsayanythinghorrible_. "Where there's one demon, there's _usually_ more. Where do we start digging?"

Once again, he's brought back by the task at hand. "I fear that my discretion may have cost me one of my best recruits, Wilmod's best friend Keran. They were last seen together at the," he lowers to a near whisper,"_Blooming Rose_, but I had no luck interrogating the, _ah_, young ladies there. Besides, I doubt if they know anything of magic or demons."

"The brothel, huh?" Wil allows a lascivious smirk to play on her lips. His nervous stutter when speaking of the Rose had done much to make up for his earlier remarks. "I'd be more than willing to get in there, give it a go."

He turns his gaze to the sky, his mouth moving in silence.

"To talk to them, of course. _That's_ all."

He returns and his voice is still slightly boyish, the current of embarrassed excitement evident in the gleam of his eyes that won't meet her own. "The order would truly be in your debt if you'd help us with this. Nobody at the br-_brothel_ will speak with me for fear I would shut them down for serving our recruits. If you can figure out what _might_ have happened to Wilmod, to the others, please come see me in the Gallows. You will be compensated for your efforts."

Cullen turns to leave, his hand moving to the hilt of his sword as if the very shadows beneath the coastal shrubberies that line the path towards Kirkwall might be teeming with demons.

Wil watches him walk away, her brain whirring. _Wait…is letting him just _go_ really the _best_ idea? What if he recognized Anders? What if he plans on trying to apprehend him once we return to the city?_

"Knight-Captain!" She jogs after him, despite the desperately unhappy noise behind her that she assumes originated from Anders' throat. _This is to protect _you_, you goose._ When Cullen finally turns around, still just _ridiculously_ handsome, she wonders what she'll do if he admits, or indicates, that he does plan on apprehending the mage who had fought to protect him.

_It seems a completely templar-y thing to do, and he seems a consummate templar. Maybe that's why you think he's so handsome, despite your vast philosophical schism. Forbidden fruit and all that._

Would she kill the Knight-Captain to save her friend and, possibly, her sister? There was every chance he'd investigate Wil, especially since her own stupid willingness to overshare meant that he knew she had mage _friends_ and would, presumably, follow up on _that_ bit of information.

"What can I do for you, Ser…serah Hawke?" He winces when he says it, and she's not certain if he's nervous talking to her away from the eyes of her companions or if he, like her, still struggles with the Kirkwallian greeting.

"I…," hesitating because she's not yet sorted out what _exactly_ she wants to say. To be fair, less than a minute had lapsed since she'd decided she was going to say _anything_. "So…you _have_ to know that one of my friends back there is an apostate."

For several seconds, he remains silent. The wind rustles the plants around them and continues on, whistling over rocks. The leather of his cuirass creaks as he moves to gaze at the ground between their feet but, despite the meekness implied in the gesture, he's working himself into a simmering anger.

"Not just an apostate, but one that shouldn't have been allowed to undergo his Harrowing, much less live long enough to…to," his words shake with quiet rage. "I _know_ him. Every templar in Ferelden knows him."

_There's a story there. What are the chances I'll get Anders to share it? _

"Then why are you walking away?" It's a bold question, a challenge. Wil holds his gaze like a prize, despite the discomfort it causes her. He believes as much as Anders does, he _exudes_ it, but his beliefs are not her own. The strength of it with in him makes her feel slightly vulnerable, as if he might have the power to upend convictions held for a lifetime.

"He serves a purpose in Kirkwall," Cullen spits on _purpose_. "He will not be removed from the general population unless he gives us reason to suspect he is a danger."

"I thought _all_ mages were a danger," there's a catch in her voice. While the templars' position benefitted her, it's an overwhelming amount of _hypocrisy_. "So you're telling me that the Chantry's beliefs on the subject are as fluid as any other political agenda? If they're willing to allow _him_ freedom because of his clinic, then shouldn't other mages be given the same benefits? Magic can be useful in _so many ways_, why pick and choose? Why not-"

He cuts her off by grabbing her upper arm, not hard but _insistent_.

"This is _not_ my decision," he seethes. "But I will abide by my orders. Be grateful that your _friend_, for as long as he can be called _that_, is useful to more than just you," his hand drops from her, and he's calming by the second. However, it comes with the realization that he'd been touching her and is standing so _close_. His cheeks redden, his voice textured with resignation and apprehension, "Be careful, serah. You needn't the experience that _I_ have to see your companion is _not_ the good man he pretends to be."

He leaves her alone on the path, the wind pushing the longest strands of her hair into her eyes so that the dull gleaming from his shield is quickly obscured.

"Did he hurt you?"

Wil's surprised Anders let the templar get out of earshot before he demands this. Although she can feel where Cullen had held her, the metal from his gauntlets had probably left slight impressions through her padded shirt, it doesn't _hurt_.

"Not at all!" Her lips automatically twist into a forced smile. Not quite certain whether she should share with Anders the fact that the templars are aware of his existence, she'd rather he assume that she and Cullen had merely continued their discussion on the inherent trustworthiness of mages. "You know me…sometimes I just don't know when to _shut up_."

"_You?_" It echoes in disbelief, but some amount of good humor. _And traces of relief_. "I would have never guessed it."

The chuckle that warms her throat doesn't really make a sound, but her smile has at least become genuine, mostly because he's staring down at her and his amber eyes gleam with admiration and something else she doesn't want to place because then she might fall face first into his mouth and..._Wil_. _It is so inadvisable to be attracted to every man you see. Especially men who are over the line. Which...Anders._

"Carver threatened to count every word that came out of my mouth once, after Ostagar. He got to 900, gave up, and just tried to knock me out with a claymore instead," her eyes tighten. "Then he realized he'd have to carry me or _leave_ me should a band of darkspawn or raiders stumble over our camp so he...feel free to stop me. I'm sure Justice is in there just dying to _smite_ me or something."

"Ohhh," he smirks, which does nearly _everything_ to undo the control she'd wrangled herself under a few minutes earlier. "I think you've gotten our positions on smiting reversed."

"Have I?" The space between them is closing and resolve evaporating and when he's the way he is now- open, pleased, happy, it's like something...really, really awesome_. _

"Unless you mean..._actual_ smiting," his hand is at the upper edge of her vision, and one long, slender finger close enough to move away the most stubborn lock of hair so they can see each other unobstructed. "The only smiting _I'm_ any good at is the behind _probably_ closed doors, one way trip to the Void variety."

_Awesome. _

_But _not_ awesome._ Despite how it feels to be her at that moment, which is flushed and flattered and in desperate want of something she _shouldn't_ want, or have, or..._just calm down. You _can_ handle this, you know._

"You're cruel," her arms go across her chest but she does not move away.

"Never more so than to myself, Hawke," his lips remain crooked, but his eyes express the plaintive truth in his words. "I'll pay for it later."

She holds her tongue and it itches to make terrible jokes about self-abuse, if only to prevent the creep of sadness as it returns to his face like the thickening of cloud cover when moments ago the sun had been threatening to break through. Instead she turns to follow the path back to Kirkwall, her mind already working to wear at the edges of this conversation so when she finally finds a bed that evening, it won't be _quite_ so impossible to _sleep_.

* * *

><p>Fenris leads and Anders hangs back.<p>

Varric and Wil are between them walking side by side, which still amuses Anders for some reason. Her strides are so long, and his so short. The compromise is an awkward and slightly unnatural fit for both of them, but they fall into it automatically now.

_No doubt they're discussing money_, Anders' eyes narrow. He doesn't think much about coin these days. Word of his clinic is spreading such that he's attracting a very different sort of client, the sort that generally show up in the night. In the past week alone he's delivered a nobles' bastard, reset the broken leg of a well-respected merchant who'd fallen in with the Carta, and discretely removed a very misused devotional candle from the bottom of an extremely confused Chantry brother. While he never _asks_ for payment, most of them drop coin in _significant_ amounts as they leave, paying both for a service well done _and_ for his discretion.

Their "donations" are enough to pay the most skilled of the help supplied by Lirene. The connections that Wil's maintained from her stint as a smuggler keeps him in cheap reagents for poultices, tinctures and potions. Plus, Wil has been doing her best to keep him from starving, either by force-feeding him at the Hanged Man or bringing him leftovers from her own dinners. Well, leftovers in only the _loosest_ sense of the word. Either the Hawke women are on a collective diet, or Leandra has started cooking with him in mind.

That makes him smile, although it's not just about _food_.

_Today has been a good day. Much better than a templar intensive a day has any right to be. _Just thinking about that _last_ templar, though, turns his lips into a tight, thin line. _Cullen_. He'd known shortly after arriving in Kirkwall that the Knight-Captain was Fereldan. When he'd discovered which templar it was...it confirmed his worst suspicions about the order in Kirkwall, that a mad fanatic like _that_ could be welcomed and _promoted_.

And now...Anders could not believe that he'd managed to walk into the Gallows and to fight alongside the Knight-Captain and not have a single threat made against his freedom. He'd not even bothered to pretend with Cullen, and yet he'd simply walked away.

_This is good._

"I don't know about _that_," Anders is hesitant to call anything _good_ anymore...except for this day.

Wil hears his murmur to himself and she turns to regard him over her shoulder, freckled cheek pink from the breeze that's cooling by the minute. Were they alone, he'd warm them with magic...or with more lines about smiting. Lines about smiting which she'd seemed to like, judging from the way her eyes, so bright to see him, had gleamed with a hundred things and he would remember _that_.

Also, her bare ass. But that was being held in a deeper part of his brain because, otherwise, he'd be getting nothing else done but _thinking_ and dodging Justice's attempts to reroute his thoughts. He'd been getting better at the latter since the incident with the book of poems. He'd stolen that little volume from the Warden-Commander on the morning she'd left to return to Denerim. Well, stolen in a _way_. She'd given it to him shortly after his conscription, but it had, really, been _theirs_ to pass back and forth with notes to each other scrawled in the margins and meeting places tucked between the pages.

Justice hated what it signified, which wasn't Anders coming to terms with his less altruistic, justice-driven motives but rather the messily human side of a woman Justice himself has regarded as an exemplar for what everyone _should_ be.

Anders' memories of her, the most fiercely felt of which were those involving desperate amounts of _lust_, did not fit with Justice's blind hero-worship.

_It is not blind I-_

"Um..." Fenris, who'd managed to create quite the gap between himself and the rest of them, is waiting for them on an outcropping of stone that marks a divergence in their path to Kirkwall. "I see city guards. And _ruins_," his green eyes skim over Anders to settle on Wil. "Isn't this where the magistrate was trying to send you?"

"Probably," Wil's jaw clenches. She'd mentioned the magistrate's request to Anders in passing, and explained why she'd declined.

_"He was _clearly_ hiding something. Do what he wants, I have a magistrate on my side. That _might_ come in handy. Piss him off because he lead me to a trap...he could screw me at will and I don't need any more of _that_. In a reputational sense…you know what I mean."_

"There are bodies there...by that entrance to the cave," narrowing his eyes to get a better view, Anders can see at least three and senses an even greater amount of discomfort. "They might be injured. Perhaps we should go see if they need help with that, at least."

Wil's brow furrows. She's still not quite comfortable around guards and she probably thinks he's going to be recklessly open with his magic.

"Aveline would appreciate it, Wil," he gently reminds her, also pushing a button he _knows_ will yield results. "You could see what's going on, and maybe even do what's right without the magistrate ever having to know."

Face twisting to the side in mock consternation, she waves her hands at him. "Ugh, stop being such a good person, Anders. _Fine_. We'll go over there, see if they need anything," she pokes his shoulder and lowers her voice so he alone can hear it. "Just so you know, I'd have done the right thing anyway. Probably."

_The right thing to her is what she gets paid to do._

Ignoring Justice, Anders offers an understanding nod and takes the lead from Fenris, his focus now on navigating the steep and rock-strewn path down to where a cluster of guards are in deep conversation. Well, most are in deep conversation. Separate from the knot and looking distinctly displeased is an elven man, with honey-colored hair that is nearly as messy as Wil's and large, violet eyes that burn into the back of one of his fellow guardsmen.

_Wait_. His stomach crawls with recognition. Then the elf, probably sensing eyes on him, catches sight of Wil and his expression brightens considerably. _A lot. _

He's already running towards them and Anders is tempted to stick his foot out so that he can't run straight into Wil's arms.

"Hawke," he gasps it out and immediately grabs her wrist in an attempt to pull her away from them.

"Uh..._hi_," her eyes are confusion. "It's nice to see you, too, Sorrell."

"I'm sorry." _Agitated_ is more like it, his hand tearing through his hair and his accusatory gaze locked on the other guards. "It's just..._you're_ here, so maybe something can actually be done."

"You mean with the convict?"

"How did you...?" His head shakes. "Never mind. It doesn't matter. Listen, there's a mad man inside those caverns. _Whoever_ sent you, you need to kill that bastard."

Bitterness echoes in his words and Anders can see from Wil's expression that it's _not_ his usual mindset. Arranging her features in a grim mask, she approaches the man who appears to be in charge. His face is oddly bloated despite his trim physique and everything about his posture shouts that he is _not_ in the mood for any shit.

"Oy!" His small eyes lock on Wil. "Are you the reinforcements the magistrate promised?"

She shrugs as noncommittally as a she can. "Sorta. What's going on here?"

"_Sorta_," he mimics her. "The man you're looking for is holed up in the ruins, although I doubt he's still in one piece. You better hope he is...the magistrate wants this'n alive."

"That bastard's to be brought in alive after all that he's done?" They're accosted by another elven man, this one older and possessing a voice like a bray and the most jaded eyes Anders has ever seen on a man, which are pinned on an increasingly incensed Wil. "Just because it's not you and your pretty little shemlen children that he's after..."

"_Pretty little shemlen children?" _Her hands go up in defense."Andraste's _ass_ what are you talking about?"

"That _man_ you're after?" _Are you stupid, shem?_ "He targets elves. He dragged my daughter into those ruins and he _killed_ her! I want _him_ dead. My Lia wasn't even his first victim...over the years he's taken _dozens_ of our children and he's never paid for his crimes."

"Dozens? That's…horrible!" Wil shoots Anders a panicked look. "But I...I'm not a magistrate. It's not my place to pass judgment on him if he's been sentenced."

"Sentenced?" The elf is practically beside himself with embittered rage. "_Sentenced_, but he's been allowed to run free! To kill Lia! And no matter how much coin I have, I'm still just an elf to these shemlen. There will be no justice for my girl in the courts of Kirkwall...the only chance for justice is _here_."

For a moment Wil remains motionless, although Anders can see she's thinking, calculating, weighing this man's words and Sorrell's warnings with her own misgivings about the magistrate's orders.

"I'll see what I can do, serah," her voice is carefully neutral. "I apologize in advance if you don't think it's enough." Turning back to Varric and Fenris, her eyes are anguished. "We'll go in, see what's going on. Kill anything or anyone that attacks us. Otherwise...we talk it out."

She begins up the small rise to the front entrance to the ruins, the men assenting to her command in the way that they fall in behind her. From the set of her jaw, Wil is not happy that such a task has fallen to her.

"I see no happy ending to this tale," she murmurs to Varric as they're consumed by stone and shadow.

"Not every tale has a happy ending, Hawke," Varric pulls Bianca from her place on his back, his hands toying with her cric. "And those that _do_ don't usually start with _He's killed dozens of our children_."

"I asked for that," weariness is woven in every word.

"You absolutely did."

* * *

><p>Of all the things they'd encountered <em>spiders, skeletons, spiders, an arcane horror, spiders<em> the last thing they'd expected to see was a _girl_.

"Who are you?" She's tiny but far from frail. Her face is delicately pretty and the wide eyes that latch onto Wil are the color of the healthy staghorn shrubs found on the coast. Her clothes are new but filthy, her skirt torn in a few places and one sleeve missing. "Can you please get me out of here? I just want to go home."

"Lia?" Disbelief echoes in the name, although Anders imagines that Wil's just not willing to get her hopes up.

At least not until the girl nods in excitement, her lips twitching in a smile of recognition.

"Maker's breath, child! Your father thinks you're dead!"

"My father?" This is even better news. "Is he safe? Kelder told me he'd hurt my family if I didn't come with him."

"Kelder...he's the man who took you, isn't he?" Wil's tone has shifted. It's softer, full of an understanding that is almost, and surprisingly, maternal. "Did he hurt you, Lia? I can ask my companions to leave, if that would make you more comfortable."

"Oh! No...not like that. He let me go when I tried to get out, but then those _things_ started coming out of the walls. I almost went back…I thought I heard him calling to me, but I didn't want to be eaten. Kelder, he was," her voice breaks here. "...he _hit_ me, told me I was nothing. I begged him to stop hurting me. I didn't think he would _ever_ stop, but he pushed me away and started _crying_. Don't you _see_?" She's pleading now, her face full of a heartbreaking amount of hope and childish compassion. "He didn't _mean_ to hurt me. He _told_ me. There are demons and they make him do these _horrible_ things."

"Oh, _Lia_," Wil's hands hover over the girl's shoulders, but she does not touch her. "Could you…_describe_ these demons?"

Anders is impressed that she was managed to keep herself from choking on the word _demon_.

"We-ell…I didn't actually _see_ them." Despite the lack of proof, Lia's conviction remains undiminished. "Kelder told me to run, so they couldn't make them hurt me anymore. Please, don't kill him. He saved me! It's not his fault he does these things!"

Wil is clearly torn between her conviction that he really _is_ at fault for doing _these things_ and not wanting to seem too harsh or uncaring to Lia. Her mouth opens a few times, only to fall closed again in frustration. Finally, Varric intervenes.

"This Kelder is a dangerous man, sweetheart. We can't promise that he won't be hurt if he fights back."

This news comes as a relief to the elven girl, "He won't fight you...I _promise_."

"Varric…you are the best," Wil stands aside and indicates the corridor they've already cleared. "We've killed everything that can hurt you, but you still need to run as fast as you can, Lia. Your father will be waiting for you at the entrance."

The girl nods, although there's hesitancy in her eyes as she passes them. Then, once she sees the corpse-strewn ante-chamber where they'd fought last, panic sets in and she disappears in a blur of tumultuous limbs.

"Her continued innocence is admirable, but foolish," Fenris frowns at Wil, his ebony brows low. "I agree with your friend, Hawke. You need to kill this bastard."

"It's looking more like it every second, that's for certain," unsheathing her sword with a sigh, she continues forward. There are skitters in the distance, the creak of ancient bones scrambling across a stone floor, and it's not long before they're beset once again by skeletons.

From Wil's expression as she turns to tear one down as it swings towards her back, she could do _this_ all day. It's much easier to survive than to pass judgment on others, even if they so very deserve to be judged. Her sword slashes upward, taking a skull with it, and Anders watches as it flies in a messy arc above his head, his hands occupied with flame and his mind distracted by-

"Maker!" He gasps as it impacts him. The skeleton isn't quite as large as he is, and missing both of its arms, but it's covered in jagged bits of metal and rough leather that bite at his flesh as it pushes against him.

_This is its offense!_ He attempts to cast a lightning spell, but his hands are searching the air around him, fighting for balance, and he can't focus well enough to do anything. _Dammit_. Pinned against the wall now, he hears Wil shout to Varric. A well-placed bolt might be able to knock the creature down but it also means that Anders is caught between _rock_ and _spiky_ and, when the dwarf finds his mark, the brief struggle ends with a motionless pile of bones at Anders' feet and his chest torn in several places by the skeleton's piecemeal armor.

With the battle done and the adrenaline dissipating, the sting of his injuries and the loss of blood threaten to overwhelm his senses. Before he can tilt over, Wil is tucked beneath his armpit, her hand splayed across his stomach for support. Together they're able to get him away from the bulk of the corpses to a spot in the ruins that's a bit less out in the open.

It's also near a not entirely closed door, and torchlight flickers through the gap.

"No doubt our convict is in there," Fenris frowns down at Anders, accusations in his eyes.

"I'm a _mage_," Anders sneers, leaning back against the wall. "I'm not used to getting knocked around like that." His hand goes to his chest, mana flowing between his palm and his bloodied skin to close the wounds. It's exhausting to heal himself, but extremely effective. "If you want to deal with Kelder, Wil, I can stay right here. If he's in that chamber, then I'll be able to hear everything. I can swoop in, rescue you if you need it."

He smiles, or attempts to do something besides _wince_ and receives a bemused grimace in response.

"Ok," she would obviously rather not leave him alone. "But if I die because you suck at swooping…"

"I'll probably be dead, too, so you can smack me around wherever we- oh," his breath catches as a slight move forward sends sharp needles of pain across his pectoral. "I should focus on healing myself."

Without another word, Wil and her remaining companions push open the stone door onto another antechamber, this one smaller than the last and bearing marks of water damage. Beyond them, Anders can make out a lone figure in colorful silks, and an elaborate hood that obscures his face. He's leaning against one of the carved supports and doesn't turn to confront his would-be captors.

"I'm assuming you're Kelder," Wil is not going to play around, nor does she bother to hide her disgust for him. It weaves itself around every word.

"Yes…," he speaks as if there's a hole somewhere in his throat, a whispered wheezing that makes him sound moments away from drawing his last breath. "I knew my father would send someone. My hopes were that the beasts would take me first."

"From everyone's vague descriptions, I was expecting a hardened criminal, but _you're_ just a coward," she spits in response.

"He didn't tell you, did he?" Kelder ignores the venom in her insult and continues as if she viewed their conversation as a pleasant distraction. "The magistrate is my father. He's been trying to keep me, and what I've done, hidden away for so many years now."

"So you kill _children_, and he just looks the other way?" Varric makes a _huh_ noise at the back of his throat. "What could possibly go wrong with _that_ plan?"

"Father was only trying to help," he continues in his affected lisp, "He wanted to stop me. But no one can. That elf girl...she had no right to be so perfect, to tempt me. The demons told me that she needed to be taught a lesson, like all the others." Anders can almost hear the man falling apart, word by word. It's disconcerting enough to hear it, he can't imagine what it must _look_ like. "The Circle was supposed to help me, but they _lied_. They said there were no demons, that I was just mad…but I'm not. This isn't my fault."

"If the Circle _really_ thought a demon was at work," Wil is admirably matter of fact, "they wouldn't risk setting you lose in the city."

"No!" Panicking now. "No…they lied!"

"This is the _last_ thing mages need," she's back to open hatred. "Regular crazies blaming demons for their problems? Mages suffer enough without _you_ making it worse."

"But if it's not demons, and I _can't_ stop...I've tried so many times," now it's almost heartbreaking. "Maybe it _is_ me…maybe I _am_… please, you have to kill me. It's the only thing that will stop me."

Anders holds his breath, uncertain how she'll respond to the madman's pleas. No doubt she wants justice for the children he'd slain, but perhaps this death would be too kind in her eyes. If she could get him to _prison_, the punishment would be far more severe _and_ fitting.

"He sees the truth of it, Hawke," Fenris speaks before Wil can. "Allow _me_ to grant his wish, if you want."

"I'll take care of this, Fenris," she bends to search her boot where Anders knows she keeps a concealed dagger. "I chose to bring us down here…and it's my decision, apparently."

And one that will weigh on her, despite the facts.

She moves closer to Kelder and he turns his back to her. Anders can't see the blade, but he can tell by the way she's holding her arm that she's going to slit his throat from behind.

"Tell my father that…_I'm sorry_."

"_Your_ father isn't the one who deserves your apologies," it's all icy loathing and condemnation, the last words Kelder will ever hear. She gives it a few seconds to sink in before her elbow pulls right and back to end his life in a far more compassionate manner than he deserves.

As Kelder's body slips to the floor, Wil stares after for several long seconds. The hand that holds her dagger is working at the hilt, tightening and loosing the grip so that it rotates slightly with every movement. Blood drips crimson from the tip to join a growing puddle that Anders can only see as a gleaming edge on the stone floor.

"Varric and Fenris, head back and ensure that Lia made it out safely. I'll help Anders," she swipes the dagger across the inside of her thigh to wipe it as clean as it can get before she returns it to her boot. There's a weariness settling over her, tugging her shoulders down and her expression when she kneels beside him in the corridor is one of concern and distant regret. "What are you doing?"

He looks down to where his hand is tangled in the tattered remains of his tunic as he attempts to hold it closed over his chest. Taking off her gauntlets, she pries his fingers apart with her own-

"You _can't_ be shy. You've seen my tits _how_ many times?"

so that the blood soaked fabric can fall away to expose the very thing he didn't want her to see.

It's a scar; even beneath the fresh mess, it's obvious. She touches it, tentatively, and her eyes widen in so much shock that he almost wants to laugh at her. It's as if she's seeing the wound being made and not just the aftermath.

"_Anders_," her thumb runs the length of it, tracing directly over his heart. Although he can't feel her skin against his own, the scar is just _that_ wide, the pressure is enough to turn his thoughts momentarily incoherent.

_She's too close._

_No_. He covers her hand, tightening around it the way she'd done earlier at the Gallows. Only now they're alone and _he wants her_. It would only be inches to her mouth, then the floor and _that buckle on the left side, middle of her cuirass, is the key to the whole thing_ it's not romantic, here or now, but he doesn't care because they're _alone_ and she's touching him and, from the way her entire body is inching forward she'd not dissuade him, she'd not want him to stop this time.

_And I wouldn't stop myself. I'd just go slowly, and focus the way I focused in the Gallows._ It wouldn't be romantic, but it would be better than damning up everything that made him human in the hopes that his ability to be attracted to people, but especially people like Wil who treats him like a man and _not_ an abomination, just disappears one day.

"What happened?" Her voice trembles and he looks at her _really_ and sees an unexpected depth of tenderness in eyes that he'd never expected to possess such. Well, for Bethany _maybe_, but not for anyone else.

_Oh._

"I was stabbed," he's holding it back, the actual memory. _Maybe I can tell her. Maybe she'll understand…she's seen me fight templars, she's _helped_ me fight them. And if she knows _exactly_ what I am, then this _

from tangled lips to tangled limbs to sweetly murmured declarations of devotion

_might be possible…someday._

"By who? Who would…_do_ that to you?" She pulls their hands away so she can see the scar again and her brow furrows in disbelief. "How could you _survive_?"

_And then his sword is level with my chest, and I let it come, because it is only steel and cannot hurt me, for I am not of mortal_ _men. And when it sinks hilt-deep in my flesh with no reaction, that's when he gives up. He turns and runs, and from behind, I tear his head off at the neck, no magic, just__ me__, whatever that is now. His blood splashes into my open mouth and it tastes like honeyed wine and the warmth spreads through me._

_He hated me, and he is dead. He feared me, and he is dead. He hunted me, and he is dead._

"_Did_ I survive?" He can't look at her because she might see it like still images in his eyes, he can't…his hand drops from hers and he begins to scramble away and cover himself at the same time. It's too much at once, his muscles snapping back at him he collapses to the ruins' floor. Trying his hardest to avoid eye-contact, he floods himself with his remaining mana so that he can struggle to his feet and stagger away, leaving her completely alone when only moments before he wanted to take her on the spot.

* * *

><p>Even Varric is angry at him for leaving her behind.<p>

Anders sits by himself, away from the entrance to the ruins to watch the others from a rocky perch. Varric and Fenris are talking quietly, the elf's stooped posture strangely appropriate for such an endeavor.

Wil is with Lia and her father, Sorrell standing close as the four of them hold an animated conversation that seems unusually heavy on mock swordplay before the other guards can interrupt to loudly recriminate Wil for killing the magistrate's son.

And they _will_ tell the magistrate, if she doesn't. They don't want this pinned on _them_.

"The death of how many children can rest on your shoulders, but Maker forbid a man with authority think poorly of you," her voice is edged in disgust and Anders has no doubt she'll bend Aveline's ear about these men. "I'll be more than happy to let him know what happened, _and_ what I think about him."

"Perhaps you should stop with _what happened_, Hawke," Varric's hands are up in a halting gesture. "I'm certain you'll get plenty more opportunities to land yourself in prison. You don't need to walk yourself right into the cell."

"_Whatever_," her arm goes around Lia's shoulder and her expression softens along with her voice. "We'll escort you and your father back to Kirkwall. If that's all right."

"Can you tell me everything about your training?" The girl is practically vibrating with excitement. "From the first time you held a sword to that last thing you killed?"

"How about an abridged version? The long one involves _way_ too many anecdotes about my brother being a jackass to keep you interested."

"Ok!" Lia's thin arm loops around Wil's waist and they begin what will be an unhurried walk back to the city. Sorrell remains with his fellow guards, although the expression on his face when Wil offers him a quick wave with her free hand clearly indicates he'd much rather be with her.

_And he should be. _

Anders trudges through the sand that has been blown across the path by the wind and tries not to think about how he _doesn't_ disagree with Justice's opinion. Sorrell was just a man, not an abomination. A guard, and not a fugitive. He'd probably never killed any of his comrades, or reveled in their deaths while he did so.

Sorrell's not a threat to anyone's safety. Not the way Anders is.

And it would never do to tell Wil, because she wouldn't believe him, she wouldn't understand the brutality of it. She sees him as a man, which is…he shivers, echoes of his earlier desire brushing along his spine. It's what he _wants_, but it's neither fair, nor right, nor _just_ to let her perception of him be informed by his good deeds alone. Until he was certain she'd seen him, _all_ of him, then whatever was trying to happen between them simply could not be.

If that meant _never_, then…never.

Ahead of him, Lia stops to laugh at something Wil said, her pale fingers curled against her mouth and her green eyes shining with merriment. If Anders hadn't seen it himself, he'd never guess that she'd spent the past few days as the prisoner of a madman.

His focus flickers to Wil. She's smiling. Even in profile he can tell it's broad and genuine, _proud_. Nothing like her usual, crooked grin that sometime seems as much a defense mechanism as it does an expression.

Without warning she turns to meet his gaze and, instead of giving him the same dirty glare as Fenris, or even offering something like Varric's obvious disappointment, she mouths two words

_"Thank you."_

and goes back to amusing the elven girl with what sounds like a raucous tale of her misadventures running from darkspawn after Ostagar.

His eyes burn even as his mouth pulls up at the corners in a small smile of his own. She's grateful he pushed her towards helping, no doubt. She hadn't actually _needed_ it, but the appreciation _is_ welcome.

_This has been a good day._

Much better than any day that found him closing off his heart had any right to be.

* * *

><p><strong>Note from SF:<strong> Holy crap! Lots of game dialogue. Hopefully all the characterization bits/foreshadowing come through.

This is my effort to explain some of Anders' pushing away-ness in Act I. The section that's in first-person is from a short story written by Jennifer Brandes Hepler, Anders' writer. None of that belongs to me!

Finally, thanks to my fantastical fic therapist, Sandtigress05. You deserve all the Vanilla Coke and Reeses' in the world for being so awesome


	14. Expectations

"We have a situation, Anders," Wil doesn't even say hello. "Are you free to talk?"

Anders looks up from where he's carefully peeling charred cloth and blackened skin away from a foundry worker's burnt thigh.

_Obviously not._

"Obviously not," he nods his head towards the grisly injury. "Unless you think I can just _leave_ it this way."

Her eyes twitch upward, but she throws her sword aside because she knows it makes his patients nervous when she keeps it on and takes the bottle of clear tincture he uses to aid in the disinfection of wounds. It frees his hands to focus solely on clearing the burn while she follows with a few drops on the freshly exposed tissue.

She's also strong enough to restrain the man when he twists in agony at the slightest contact and it's darkly amusing the way she can pin someone much larger than herself to the cot while simultaneously making comforting _hush_ noises in the back of her throat.

"Can't you knock him out?" Her nose wrinkles as he bellows into her face. "A sleep spell? They're pretty much harmless, right?" She raises one eyebrow when he pauses his task to look up at her in mild wonderment. Why hadn't he thought of that sooner? "Father used to zap us with them all the time."

_You cannot just-_

Anders touches the man's sweat-slicked forehead and concentrates. Sleep spells outside of battle require a certain mental state and, although his body is exhausted, his mind is too frantic at the moment, flickering between anatomy lessons, Senior Enchanter Wynne's lectures on what _this_ type of blistering meant and what to do when the skin turned _that_ shade of grey, and his own need to mind the boundaries of the burn so he wasn't taking healthy skin with it and causing his patient even more pain. He draws a deep breath, holding it somewhere close to his stomach, before releasing it along with a warm swell of mana and a delicate yellow plume of light into the man's forehead.

For the briefest of moments, his bloodshot eyes search Anders' face like those of a trapped animal, more from the state of his body than the spell, and then they quiver to a close, his tense features going slack soon after.

Wil, not wanting to be surprised should he not be _fully_ unconscious, gives him a hard poke in the chest before she commits to relaxing her hold so she can help Anders. Without having to worry about the man flinching or lashing out, he progresses quickly, finishing within a few minutes so that he can move on to a more thorough cleaning before he applies the salve and bandages.

"So is there anything about your evening at the brothel that you can tell me right here?" He's avoiding looking at her. The night before had been a particularly difficult one to get though. Not even working on his proposal for the dissolution of the Circle as an institution had done enough to distract him as well as he would have liked. The margins had quickly filled with random thoughts and snippets of what he would like to say to her today, and tomorrow, and maybe several years from now, if they were both alive and she didn't despise him to his core.

"Let's see," she thinks for a moment, apparently oblivious to his turmoil. "Bethany almost killed me for pretending I was going to sleep with Jethann, I was propositioned by the same creepy noble who tried last time, we saw Uncle Gamlen, who had the _audacity_ to intimate that he was going to tell Mother, and I almost slit my own throat. Whilst being mind-controlled by a whore-slash-blood mage."

She says that last bit so _plainly_ that he almost misses it entirely.

"Wait. _What?_" He looks up, his eyebrows up almost to his hairline.

"Hmm?" Wil's face is all innocence before she offers an open mouth smile. "I _wondered_ if I'd get your attention with that."

"So you're joking about that last part," it comes out with relief. "The whore-slash-blood mage bit."

"No, it _happened_," fear flickers across her features. "And, frankly, it was terrifying. She even had Varric all...smitten and monotone. Creepy on top of creepy."

"What the-" he stares at the man beneath him. "All right, give me a few minutes to finish with him and I'll..." glancing around helplessly, he realizes that the only place that's really private would be his room at the back. _That is such a bad idea._ Muriel and Esther, two of his older aids, are re-wrapping a hand that had recently lost all four fingers and three more volunteers are preparing kits and poultices for Wil's upcoming trip to Sundermount. All of them were _way_ too interested in Anders and his involvement with the pretty Fereldan sword, as Esther calls her, to be trusted not to eavesdrop. "You know where to go."

He must sound _miserable_ because she clucks her tongue and departs with a sardonic, "I promise not to curl up on your cot or appear in any way approachable."

She's good for her word. He finds her standing next to his dresser, posture foreboding and eyes unreadable. His first response as the door clicks shut behind him is to panic _Maker, what did I do with my writings from last night, please tell me that they're not in here. _He has a flash of the papers being folded and neatly tucked into his desk drawer and he exhales as if he's been holding _that_ particular breath for _days_.

"Are you all right?" It's asked as a friend, but she adds a _sneer_ to undermine the pleasantry and it's so silly that he smiles.

"I'm as all right as I ever am," he leans back against the door. "You're really terrible at not being appealing."

_Anders._

_Anders._ This is _exactly_ what he wasn't supposed to be doing, but she just...brings it out in him. There's so much going on behind those bright eyes of hers and she holds most of it close to the surface but just out of sight. It's a maddening temptation to puzzle her out, to discover, amongst other things, how well she understood her own stance on magic and the Chantry's treatment of mages. Does she know the history, or is it all a kneejerk reaction to her own upbringing, a manifestation of the fierce amount of love she has for her family but especially her sister?

But he can't delve. Delving is dangerous. Delving is...starting to sound vaguely filthy in his head, so he gestures for her to recount the events of the evening before, starting shortly after he'd split from the group to see to his clinic.

"Ghyslain got Ninette's ring back, which I regretted immediately. The ass actually said 'Maybe it's better this way'! Can you imagine? His wife is dead, and..._anyway_," she shakes it off. "Jethann propositioned me straight off but when I told him about Ninette, he seemed almost heartbroken. I think he really wanted her to be off chasing too young tail in Starkhaven or something."

"And?" He isn't so much into hearing about her getting propositioned, especially since she's quietly ebullient in a way that he's noticed only occurs after she's been with that elf of hers.

"Then we met with _Idunna_," Wil says the name like a joke, but her eyes flicker with the tiniest glint of fear. "She was apparently a favorite of our missing templar and his friend. Also, a mage. If Bethany hadn't been there to interrupt her spell...I might not have made it out alive."

_Weak-minded. Can we even tell for certain that she's not a thrall now? _

_She's not a thrall...she's too _Wil_ for that to be the case._

"So what was she hiding that she thought it would be a good idea to mind-control you in front of witnesses? Does she know what happened to Wilmod?" Anders holds his arms across his stomach, uncertain what he expects to hear. Despite his own experience with Justice, he has only a basic, and shaky, grasp on how possession works and the various ways a person can come to be possessed. Before yesterday, he'd thought only mages and some animals could host a demon. Now...

Wil cringes, "It's terrible."

"I'm a Grey Warden. I've seen things in my _good_ dreams that would make the most battle-hardened soldier soil his smalls," he frowns nonetheless. "Or...that's _not_ the variety of terrible that you mean."

"There's a group of blood mages in Kirkwall who are forcing demons into the recruits...they hope that it will destroy the order."

"Maker...but that's madness!" Justice is roiling inside of him, his opinions on blood magic like darts in the midst of Anders' own and he can no longer tell them apart. "Don't they know what will happen if they're caught? This is...I don't even know what to call it."

"It's a _situation_?" She raises her brow. "Or do you expect me to barge in here over every little thing now?"

He begins pacing in the tight space between Wil and the door, agitated by the methodology of these maleficar and the potential fallout should their plan become common knowledge.

"Do we know where the blood mages are?" He stops, realizing that she's pulling out a scrap of parchment with a name and address scrawled across it. "Of _course_ they're in the undercity."

"Fenris and Varric are waiting for us there. Or they should be soon," she begins towards the door, expecting him to be returning to the clinic and not remaining alone with her. Instead, he's just staying there. "Uh...yes?"

"I want to apologize to you, Wil. About yesterday," he struggles to keep his voice even. _Just say you're sorry and move on. It's not like she's angry at you. _"I shouldn't have left you like that."

As if that was the worst of it, him leaving. As if the flirting and the cultivation of futile tension between them wasn't the _real_ cruelty.

"Why?" She doesn't quite meet his gaze, and her smile is terribly forced. "We sent Lia running through those passageways..._I_ was in little danger."

"Wil..." _Stop it, Anders. She doesn't want to talk about it._ "That's not-"

"It doesn't matter, okay?" _You're off the hook_, her face says it, _as long as you don't make things any more uncomfortable between us_. With a deft hand, she tugs at one side of his pauldron. "I think we should go. You know how glowery Fenris can be if he's made to wait. He'll expect me to spend most of what I earn on forgiveness wine."

And that's it. Anders' chest tightens, but his fingers find the door release and he opens them back up to the clinic and five pairs of curious eyes that pretend not to watch as Wil gathers up her sword and Anders checks on his burn patient one last time.

"I'll be gone for a few hours, probably," he briefs Muriel on what she might expect, not that she needs it. He feels as if he's away more often than not these days, but that might be because his time spent not at the clinic is usually much more memorable, even if it's not as worthwhile.

Wil waits outside while he finishes up and, when he emerges, she's chuckling to herself.

"I was just thinking," she catches his quizzical look. "None of these little, innocuous jobs ever turn out to be very _little_. I would absolutely not mind rescuing kittens from a hard to access rooftop, or delivering love letters between a shy suitor and the object of his desire. Things like that. Instead I get dragons and serial killers and boneless women and crazy fucking blood mages. Is it just Kirkwall...or is it me?"

Anders laughs, despite himself.

"I think that's a question for _Varric_. He understands how these things work far better than I do. I imagine he'll even tell you a story about someone like you who's having a similar crises of identity," he falls into step beside her, the exchange flowing comfortably between them.

"This is _true_," bumping her elbow against his, she offers him a sly sideways smile. "I bet you'd be totally down for the kitten rescuing."

This earns a guffaw. "I'd quit my clinic and take up kitten rescuing full time if you asked me to. Granted they weren't blood mage kittens; the buggers are powerful enough without the ability to control minds."

"Here's a deal then," she stops in mid-stride and turns to him, her eyes gleaming through a curtain of hair. "After the expedition is over and Beth and I are living a life of wonton luxury in Hightown, we'll open up a kitten rescuing business. And, because I like you so much, you'll be assigned to calming the freshly rescued kittens via cuddles...and possibly zapping bandits we encounter along the way. But mostly cuddling. You in?"

"Of course I'm in," he lies. Not a lie because he wouldn't do it, he'd love nothing more, but a lie because he has plans for his life after the Deep Roads that don't involve her. They're half-formed now, mostly small plots to upend the Circle that don't involve demon possessing templars or anything blatantly nefarious, but they'll be dangerous and possibly not executable in Kirkwall. And he _should_ tell her, because she likes him so much, but he can't. He just..._can't_.

_Selfish._

Justice is accusatory.

_I know. _

Anders is regret.

* * *

><p><em>Yesterday afternoon I was chatting with a man who kidnapped, abused and killed elven children for tempting him, and then blamed it all on demons. And he's <em>still_ only the second craziest person I've met in the past twenty-four hours._

_Tarohne even looks crazy._ Not that Kelder had possessed an air of sanity about him, but he had been so thoroughly convinced that it was an outside force guiding his actions that his demeanor had been, in the beginning at least, almost normal. Wil could imagine meeting him at the Blooming Rose and finding him off-putting but she would _never_ be able to guess the depths of his depravities.

Tarohne, however, wore her crazy in muted pink smeared across dark lips and in the barbaric facial tattoos that served only to accentuate the ravages of..._crazy. _Crazy_ has aged her, and made her look like a weird and demented doll. _

Also not helping with that unassailable first impression is the half-naked man suspended in mid-air and the whole _vessels for experiments_ thing.

"You said we're _what_ for your _what_?" Wil can't keep her eyebrow down. "And _that_," she gestures to the floating man, "I am _assuming_ is Keran."

Tarohne ignores her questions and sniffs in interest. "Perhaps the demons will find one of _you_ suitable."

_Crazy. Aaaaand a little scary._

"_Always_ with the demon thing!" Anders shoots Wil an exasperated look. "Can't you people say _No_?"

This offends the blood mage _deeply_; she narrows here eyes to set him straight, "I am not some helpless waif that ran crying to a demon! I sought them out! I _embraced_ them!"

"Right," Wil's fingers are rubbing circles against her temple. The scary has subsided...Tarohne is no doubt a threat, but she's the sort of threat that can be easily waylaid by her own _brilliance_. "So what _did_ you do to the recruits?"

Tarohne's eyes light up, her smile turning dementedly triumphant. "Demons can inhabit much more than mages and corpses. With my help, they can control anyone I want! Templars, nobles..._well-intentioned meddlers_."

_I suppose _I_ fall under that third category._

"I do hope you realize I cut my way through your abominations and whatnot," Wil's hand is going for her sword. _Let's get this over with_. "I won't submit as easily as some of the recruits did."

"A feisty one, too. The demons like a host with _spirit_," the mage is smirk-grimacing now, her browning teeth adding to the aura of dementia that surrounds her as she giggles at her own joke. "So many of the templars are beaten down by the order...it's not as much fun. But it _will_ be worth it when so many of their recruits are demons. How many do you think can change before it drives the Knight-Commander crazy?"

"_That_ is a _brilliant_ word choice, Tarohne, because your plan is utterly, _utterly_ insane," head shaking in annoyed disbelief, Wil takes a step towards Tarohne and her two masked companions. "If anything, Meredith would Annul the Circle before she turned on her order."

Once again, Tarohne's hearing is selective. "In days of old," she reminisces almost dreamily, "the Tevinter Imperium spanned the known world, and demons were our allies. We held them in check with power...knowledge," she extends her hands, which tremor with energy. "With _these_, by simply waving my hands, I can achieve more than a templar can in an entire lifetime. Yet _they_ control _us_? We should be ruling _them_. _We_ should be ruling you _all_!"

Behind Wil, Varric clears his throat politely to murmur, "Hey, Blondie. Just a bit of advice. I wouldn't recruit this one as the face of your Mages Should Be Free! campaign. She might rub people the wrong way."

Wil _would_ laugh, but Tarohne does _not_ appreciate the mockery, her mouth twisting into a violent sneer as she motions her companions forward. "Try not to do any permanent damage. They would all make _fine_ vessels."

Before Tarohne has the opportunity to cast a single spell, Wil is there with her sword. The mage's robes might as well be tissue paper for all the protection they offer and both fabric and the flesh it obscures give easily to the blade as it pierces Tarohne's abdomen and slides forward. She doesn't die immediately, her face warping into confused rage as she glares between the steel in her stomach and Wil's own determined eyes.

"You..._bitch_," she sputters, droplets of blood coming out to mottle her frosty pink lips.

"Better to be a bitch than have a sword through my stomach," Wil yanks on the hilt of her weapon, pulling it back hard and then whipping around to slice through a shade on her flank that's in the process of casting a pall of weakness over her. _Not today._ Her eyes scan the scene that has erupted around her. Anders is holding his own at the center of the room, one hand urging rage demons to flame closer while his other swings his staff the moment they move into range, leaving behind a trail of ice that debilitates the creatures and renders them incapable of disappearing into a molten pool.

Between two supports, Varric is wedged in and targeting everything that moves into range. His bolts have fallen the other two mages but aren't quite as useful against elemental demons.

"Hawke," Fenris keeps his voice low, even in battle. Wil twists to where he's being accosted by a...

"What _is_ that?" She's never seen anything like it before- violet and shimmering and beautiful as it dances towards her in a churning mist of light and magic. Momentarily transfixed by the way it moves and-

hands glide with tender resolution along her back, claiming her as do the lips that hold her own captive. There is nothing else in the world that matters besides the warm friction of their skin and the way their bodies shift and breathe together. The world has laid down its demands on them. They are need and needed and the only claims they stake or have staked upon them are their own.

_It's a desire demon._ Her eyes blink away the image, or dream, or _whatever_ it is and she only narrowly avoids getting further stunned by its spell.

_"Know what to expect, Mina." Her father's hands are on either side of her head, his fingers shaking slightly because he needs her to learn but he doesn't want to hurt her. "Many demons will try to compromise your spirit, consume your thoughts. Ready yourself, make your mind inhospitable. Go blank, or think of something that they cannot latch onto or use against you. Count, recite the Chant or a poem or..."_

"I call it my sword of mercy," Wil dodges left as one purple talon tracks its way towards her, followed by glittering eyes that seek to recapture her mind. "Ser Stephan told me it was harder than any sword he'd handled...and the longest he'd ever let pierce him."

Fenris is skirting the edges of the magical maelstrom that encircles the demon's feet and Wil catches him listening, his face twisted in confused concentration as he strikes again and again, having to work much harder to inflict damage upon a being that is not entirely in this world.

"I never thought I would hold such a magnificent piece of craftsmanship in my hands, Knight-Captain Dirk. But now I feel as if all of my training has led to this moment," Wil's lips move in silence for a few seconds before she can remember the next line. "It would be an honor to die a thousand small deaths at the end of your magnificent blade and a much greater thing to have you wield my own as I do so."

"I can see your innermost desires," the demon continues to focus on Wil even while it bats at Fenris as if he were a bug and not a glowing, claymore-wielding beast that is diminishing her by the second. "I know what you want most in this world, Wilhelmina Hawke."

_I hope you think I want some hot templar-on-templar action, because you'd be so wrong. _Wil continues, a bit louder, "Oh, Ser Maximus...then allow me show what mercy I can bestow upon you, and what pleasures our forbidden duel can bring." Smirking as the desire demon wavers, Wil dives forward, her non-metaphorical sword swinging hard to the right to catch the demon's hip. Instead of a visceral catching of flesh and tendons, it's like slicing through water but slightly more disconcerting. The demon touches down, its shoulders sagging but its eyes still flashing temptation. For a second, Wil's gets cast back into the worry-free bliss of another's arms before she can reassert herself. "Then please take in your hand the hilt of my drawn weapon, to kneel before it and offer your final murmured prayers so it might fill my head with righteous-"

The rest of Wil's meditation is drowned out by a piercing shriek as the desire demon is consumed by ice that turns her violet skin a muted azure, momentarily freezing her in mid-scream before Wil can smack her with the pommel of her sword. It's a casual gesture that shatters the demon into a thousand unseemly chunks. Bethany finds the process needlessly violent but, from the expression on his face, Anders very much approves.

_Or he approves of my-_

"Hawke, has anyone ever told you that you are the strangest?" Varric is working at Bianca. She has blood splattered the length of her and his repair kit is already out. "What _was_ that?"

"Just a little something to keep the demons out of my head," Wil nudges a rapidly thawing eyeball with the toe of her boot, wrinkling her nose in disgust. "Like the Chant... but filthy."

Fenris and Varric both can't quite make eye contact, and they _definitely_ can't look up at the half-naked templar who is still floating in mid air.

"_The Monastery Men!_" Anders smiles, his amber eyes bright. "Now I know what you and Bethany were talking about. We used to copy down passages and switch out names for templars that were in the tower. Then we'd hide them around the chantry and the theology section of the library. It drove the Knight-Commander _mad_."

"Maybe that's what Tarohne should have been doing," Wil sheaths her sword and joins Anders at the base of the column of magic that is holding Keran aloft. "It would have probably been just as effective, but way more fun to investigate." Her eyes wander up to the young templar above them, "Speaking of fun...I can't imagine he's had a very good time of it these past few weeks. Do you think you can get him down?"

Anders has been studying cage since they'd began their conversation, his palm feeling along the diaphanous boundaries to get a sense of what sort of spell is being used.

"Well, it doesn't seem to be blood magic. With Tarohne dead, I _should_ be able to simply negate whatever of her energy remains..." he presses the sides of his thumbs together and extends his hands until they are partially within the column. Eyes falling closed in concentration, he draws in a sharp breath and then his entire body is consumed in blue light that flares and redirects along his arms to pulse out of his palms. The mana runs along the magical walls, erasing them like a curtain going up and, within seconds, Keran falls down, landing on bared feet with an _oof_ and an intensely dazed expression.

It takes the poor boy a few minutes to recover.

"Is it really over?" He has Macha's blue eyes and they glimmer with relief as he runs his hand over his neck and face. "Oh, thank the Maker. I thought He had abandoned me!"

"Do not trust him, Hawke," Fenris is ever wary. "He is likely possessed."

"Yeah, I'd listen to the elf. Keran might very well be carrying an extra passenger..." Varric's eyes narrow. "Then we'd be playing right into that madwoman's plans."

Keran's face pales with their exchange, and his voice is edged in desperation as he asks, "What happens now? What will become of me? I survived these maleficar's torture...will I fall now to you?"

"Anders...is there anything you could do to test Keran for possession?" Wil's willing to try just about anything. The alternative is quite..._unpleasant_ to consider.

"Well," Anders ambles forward, his gait thoughtful. "There's one sure way..."

He winds up his arms as if he's going to administer a beating. One hand shoots out with a bolt of electricity that finds the recruit's bare chest and sends him staggering back.

"Anders!" Wil had expected something...gentle. Another bath of light, or perhaps even something involving Justice. When he turns back to her, his lips are crooked in a satisfied smirk.

"What was _that_ about?" Keran sounds betrayed.

Anders merely shrugs, his eyes locked on Wil's. "If there was a demon in there, it would have defended itself. Looks like he's clear."

"Hmmm," she's not certain he had to go _that_ extreme, but she trusts his judgment at least. "That's good news for Keran," her attention goes back to the young man. "Go ahead and leave. I think you've been through enough."

Once again, Wil's expectations are defied. Instead of relief, Keran's eyes widen in panic. "Please, don't tell the templars. I don't know what they'd do to me...and my sister depends on my wages. I need to go back and let them know I'm all right...let Macha know that I'm all right. Good-bye, serah."

Keran runs towards the back of the sanctuary, away from where they'd entered.

"I hope he's going to stop and grab something to cover up with on his way out," Varric muses. "Otherwise, he might end up a character in one of Hawke's smutty stories."

Even Fenris chuckles.

"What a mess," Wil rolls her shoulders, the muscles between them tight with tension. "I supposed it's time for me to brave the boat back to the Gallows to tell the Knight-Captain the joyous news."

"You know, Wil...when you talk to Ser Cullen, you might want to downplay the blood magic angle," Anders' voice is hushed. "We don't need the templars cracking down any harder."

"Yeeees," Fenris sneers. "_Protect_ them, Hawke. They are obviously helpless."

"I'm not _protecting_ the blood mages," Wil snaps back at him. "I'm protecting the Circle mages from backlash for what the blood mages did. If the Knight-Commander suspects that _any_ of them were involved...who knows what sorts of _preventative_ measures she'd turn to."

"Always ready with an excuse. No matter, I need to return to Hightown and won't be joining you for this. Although I'd like to see how you spin it to the templars. Or are you going to resort to outright lies?"

"Fuck off, Fenris," Wil's jaw clenches as she thinks of the stories Father used to tell them of the Gallows, of lives spent in quiet desperation because one bad mage could cause the persecution and punishment of them all.

_"And most of us thought it was right...that we _deserved_ it. But _I_ had done _nothing_ wrong. _I_ had committed no crimes beyond being born...why should I be locked up because another boy had attacked a templar for watching him too closely in the baths? Why should _I_ go without food for three days because an apprentice escaped?"_

"The Gallows is a prison and I will not condemn any within it to more persecution because of crazies like Tarohne."

Fenris lowers his head, the anger that flared his nostrils and curled his mouth fading into something less harsh. "We shall disagree like adults. I will see you tomorrow, then."

He turns and begins picking his way around corpses and dead shades to find the lift that had brought them down. Varric's eyes follow him out before he turns to Wil.

"I know he can take care of himself, Hawke, but I'd feel better tagging along. I'd hate for some unsuspecting refugee to wind up losing their heart because they accidentally looked at Broody the wrong way," he snorts softly. "Besides, I need to meet with a few people before we head out tomorrow afternoon...I have a couple of leads that might interest you _and_ pay quite handsomely."

"Do any of them involve rescuing kittens?" She asks hopefully. "And not from demons, or murderers, or evil templars. Just from a tree or rooftop?"

Varric begins to back away, shaking his head and laughing. "Not that I'm aware of, but I'll keep my eyes open, Hawke. You and Blondie stay safe, and I'll see you at the Hanged Man."

Varric's departure leaves Wil alone with Anders, which isn't _exactly_ what she wants. Last night had been difficult...even after being with Sorrell her fingers had held onto the memory of the mage's heart drumming against them and she couldn't let go of the way he'd looked at her...she'd never known that a person's eyes could turn her inside out with their longing. After he'd left her alone in the ruins, she'd spent almost five minutes gathering herself, convincing herself it was just a projection of what _she_ wanted from _him_, even though she'd never wanted anything in her entire life with such _intensity_.

_It's terrifying_. In the ruins there was a place at the back of her throat that ached for something she could never truly have, even though it had been so close only moments before. In the undercity, her skin feels as if it doesn't quite fit her anymore. _But _that's_ Anders._

"Two things," he's watching her with gentle curiosity. "I think even _Justice_ appreciates you telling Fenris off...or maybe _I_ just appreciate it so much that it seems that way. And...where are you going tomorrow?"

_Shit_. "Sundermount!" She chirps, as if being cheerful will make up for this bit of information.

"_Sundermount_?" His brow furrows and his eyes begin the descent into sadness that she finds so hard to resist. "I thought you were going next week...I can't leave on such short notice, Wil. Or...is this because of yesterday?"

"What are you talking about?" She knows _exactly_ what he's talking about. "_Of course not_. I changed it for Aveline...the Viscount has confirmed her post and she starts her big boss indoctrination next week. If I want her with me, and I do, it has to be done now."

"Oh," he frowns. "Well, I guess that will give me a few days to catch up on some things, then. I suppose we'll need to finish up your supplies. I'll make extra health poultices for you, since I won't be there."

"Could you just go ahead and bottle a little bit of yourself?" Wil leads them out, her eyes doing all they can to help her avoid stepping in anything that would be too difficult to clean off her boots. "We could sell it in the bazaar!" She assumes her best Varric voice, "'It's like having a healer in your pocket! Also, it smells pretty good!'"

"I smell good?" Anders buries his face in one of his pauldrons, his expression no longer sad at all as he inhales and comes up coughing. "That was _not_ well thought out."

Laughter echoing throughout the now empty hide-out, Wil's fingers go to twist in the dispirited feathers that cover his shoulder. "I'm sure _they_ don't…but you do. Surprisingly enough. You _should_ smell like sickness and sewage…not honeysuckles and rain."

"Well, I've been _told_ that I tas…" he catches himself in mid-sentence and wrests his eyes away from her, licentious smirk replaced with purposeful disinterest.

They make their journey back to his clinic in uncomfortable silence.

The safety of other people on the other side of the entrance means he's free once again to speak. "When were you going back to the Gallows?"

"Straight from here," she tightens the straps on her gauntlet. "I promised Beth I'd help her with laundry, so…those are my plans for the day. I suppose I can stop by here before I meet everyone tomorrow. I'll bring some rations, too," she smiles, despite herself. "I'd hate for you to starve while I was away."

The corners of Anders' mouth tremble, and one toe traces in the grit that covers the ground. "I was hoping to go with you to the Gallows. I'd like to hear how Ser Cullen takes the news…and how you explain it."

"You're just afraid I'll say something monumentally silly…or do you not trust me?" Her eyebrow pops up. "I expect it from _Fenris_…"

"Nothing like that. Although the former is _always_ a concern with you," he tries to make it lighthearted. "But I do have work to get done here…so it's not the end of the world, or enything. Oh! I have something to help you. They were selling ginger tea in the bazaar…I can make you some to take with you in a flask. It'll probably be cold by the time you get the Gallows, but it might help with your nausea and…what?"

His head tilts under her slightly dazed stare.

"What? Nothing," Wil says it too quickly, embarrassed as she is by _what_. "As much as I'd love to stay for tea, and to _not_ vomit, Bethany is likely to start burning holes in all of my good pants if I'm gone too long." She rolls her eyes dramatically, "_Mages_."

"I'd watch who you say that around," his voice lowers as he takes a step through the door to his clinic. "I know a guy, he's sensitive about these sorts of things."

"Seems like an ass!" It's as cheerful as anything and she bounces away, the sense of his warm laughter following her for far longer than the sound.

* * *

><p>"Hawke, I don't know if you're the dumbest person in Kirkwall, or the bravest," Aveline's brows are pulled close as she regards her friend. She's staying with the Hawkes for the evening, a rare night out of the barracks before work further consumes her life. "But it can not be a good idea for you to go around spouting your views all over the Gallows like that."<p>

"My _views_? They're uncommon, but hardly _revolutionary_," Wil's draped between two of the dining chairs, her bare feet propped up on the table, much to Aveline's disgust. "All I said was that mages are humans and elves, just like anybody else. It's true, but the Knight-Captain acts like they're already corrupted, straight from the womb."

From her stuffed chair in the corner of the room, Bethany is radiating concern. "But _Mina_. Mage sympathizers get arrested, too!"

Wil waves her off, "But I helped the _templars_...so I'm not completely irredeemable to them. Besides, when it comes down to it, they have their own rules. Getting rich won't be enough to keep us safe...we need to have some sort of leverage, too."

Aveline shrugs and sinks into her seat. "That doesn't mean you have to be so vocal, Hawke. Bite your tongue and smile, sometimes. You'd be surprised how far it can get you."

"If I recall correctly, you didn't become Captain of the Guard by _biting your tongue and smiling_. And I think you'd be surprised how often _I_ do...I could be so much worse," Wil cedes to Bethany.

"The first time she got drunk was at the Dane's Refuge. We ran into Revered Mother Hannah as we were trying to walk home. _I_ wished her a pleasant evening. _Mina_ asked her if she ever wished she could take a husband on the side. And then proudly dubbed it a 'Reverse Andraste'."

"And normally, I would just _think_ something _that_..."

"Sacrilegious?" Amusement crinkles the edges of Aveline's dark eyes.

"I was going to say charmingly irreverent," Wil's feet drop to the floor, an automatic response to the shuffling of boots outside of their apartment. With Gamlen and Mother out for the night, she's not expecting anyone else. Holding up one finger to silence Aveline and Bethany, she rises from the chair to peer through the knothole and finishes, "But given the mother's reaction..._sacrilegious_ is probably the better choice."

All she can see through the gap in the door is gray fluff.

"_Anders_." She yanks the door open and, judging by the way his mouth just gapes, he'd not fully committed to knocking. "Did you tell me you were coming by tonight?"

"No," his gaze runs down her face and back up, as if he's forgotten what she looks like in the half a day since he's seen her last and wants to confirm that it's really _her_. "Is this a bad time?"

She moves away from the door to let him in. "Not at all, unless you're opposed to seeing my sister and I in our wash day best," Wil gestures to her henley, which is in desperate need of patches at the elbows, and tan leggings. Bethany is clad in a long and tattered sleeping gown covered by a lumpy sweater that had once belonged to their father. "We can't _always_ be stunning, you know."

"_Mina_," Bethany groans, her legs crossing primly at the knee. "You don't have to draw _attention_ to it."

"Like Anders cares."

"Just because _you're_ fine with parading naked all over the Hanged Man, doesn't mean-"

"Naked?" Aveline's expression goes to feigned surprise. "_Maker_, Hawke. Do I even want to know?"

"Isabela cheats at cards," it's the same explanation she gave Anders and, like him, Aveline gets it immediately. "And I didn't _parade_."

"She paraded a little," Anders pulls off the canvas bag he has slung over his shoulder; the faint sound of clinking indicates that he's brought plenty of potions for their trip. "This _should_ last you at least four days. Do you know any healing spells at all, Bethany?"

She looks up at him, startled by the question. "No. Father tried to teach me once, on mice. I think I actually killed them faster."

"Bethany's focus was always the freezey-flamey, _explosive_ type of magic. She's our destructo mage!" Wil laughs off Anders' fretful expression. "Seriously, Anders. We're just going to visit the Dalish, and maybe kill a few mercs on the way. Hardly out of the norm for us. Unless, of course, I'm in big trouble for putting this off for so long, in which case Flemeth herself might jump out of the amulet, dragon up, and burn me to a crisp. Either way, I don't think your presence would make a difference in my survival."

His forehead begins to furrow. Clearly, he'd not considered the Flemeth angle.

"I need to speak with you…alone," eyes dart to the Hawkes' shared bedroom, then back to her. "In the hallway, or outside."

He drops his bag and follows Wil out and down to the front steps. The limestone stairs are rough against the bottoms of her bare feet, but the chance for splinters is lower significant here. And there's less of an opportunity for Bethany or Aveline to eavesdrop.

"So...we're alone. _Again_," she gives a cheeky smirk and studies his face for a moment. "I'm starting to think you like me."

"Wil," his voice is just this side of too husky for it to be merely a warning and she's tempted to inch forward, to be a complete brat in the hopes that he might give a little. "I can't."

"I remember what you _said_, but you've not taken any vows of chastity, have you? I mean, I _know_ who you are and I-"

"You _don't_!" Justice is at the surface, shimmering blue in Anders' dark eyes and making his pale skin iridescent in waves. His voice is not loud, but it carries the same unearthly echo as it had the first time she'd met him. "You have no idea what we've done, or what we need to do. Take what aid you need from us now, but it _will not last_."

Wil grits her teeth at this verbal assault but refuses to show any indication of fear. The dissonance of seeing Anders face so angry, and at _her_, is far worse than it had been the first few times this happened_. You actually care what he thinks of you now. _Resolve strengthening, she digs her toes into the stone beneath her.

Her lack of an obvious response is enough to dissuade Justice and he fades, leaving behind the usual traces of his presence and Anders, his face twisted in an apology he can't put into words, leaves her, moving so quickly down the steps of her building that she could almost believe he's still not quite human.

_But you can't let him go like that._

"Anders!" Wil calls his name and gives chase. He's very fast, but she's lighter, stronger and has a healthier sleep cycle. Ignoring the way the rock occasionally scrapes at her feet, she manages to catch him and, at a loss for what else she can do, sort of leaps onto his back, stopping him well enough so that she can then fumble about, arms still around his neck, to face him. "I don't want you to go."

"He's right, though," tears shine in his eyes and his body is almost impossibly warm against her own. "All of it. I'm just too much of a coward to tell you myself."

"I don't care," Wil pulls away, although her hands hold him firmly by the shoulders. "You had something you were going to tell me earlier. I'm still interested in what you have to say."

He's staring at her, his gaze as intense as it had been yesterday in the ruins but it's not lust she sees there. It's regret, anger and- _No, Wilhelmina._

After a few seconds of silence that sparks between them, Anders is finally able to speak. "As a reaver, the closer you come to death, the more powerful you are," he's whispering. "It takes years of training to perfect it, but it also takes years of training to heal a sword to the gut with a single breath…so I'm afraid you might stumble into this one, too."

"Why afraid? It sounds _awesome_," she attempts a smile, _anything_ to ease his mind, anything to let him know that she's not scared of him, that she doesn't care what Justice says, even if it's true. And even if she _does_ care, because there was worrying finality to that _but it will not last_, she'll keep _that_ to herself. "I'm _trying_ to see a downside, and failing pretty badly."

He rolls his shoulders, a bid to extricate from her grasp and she allows her hands to fall away. She trusts that he'll at least explain before he darts back into the night.

"The downside is that you won't notice how badly you're injured before it's too late. You'll feel like a god even though you're on death's door. You'll not heal as easily, either," his hand waves for emphasis. "Since I can't be there, I want you to be cautious. And not _Hawke_ cautious, but _normal person _cautious. With everyone else going, I can't imagine you'll be at _too_ great a risk, but…better safe, and all that."

"So I have your permission to hide behind Aveline and Fenris in every fight?" She scrunches down slightly and pulls her shoulders in. "Do you think I'd even fit behind Fenris?"

"_Wil_," he says it again, and it clearly means _stop_.

"No flirting, no joking...you take away sarcasm and the word _fuck_, and I'll be communicating with you via blinking...or would that fall under flirting?" She tugs her sleeves down over her hands, the task taking her gaze away from his face which is in a state of what she'd classify as sorrowful sadness. "I suppose I should probably not invite you back up for dinner...or stop by the clinic tomorrow before we leave."

"Probably not," his voice is bruised.

_I'll just leave some bread and apples with Lirene. Either she'll deliver it to him, or she'll give it to some of the refugees and toss him some more of her leftovers._

"Then...I'll be seeing you. Thanks for the poultices...I, uh, paid you, right?" She honestly can't remember. "If not, I can run up and grab some coin, just in case..."

"You did," he's already walking away. "Be careful, Hawke."

_Hawke_. It's what everyone calls her now, but it's discordant coming from Anders. She turns and jogs across the square and back up to the apartments, trying hard not to think about why.

"So, did he kiss you?" Bethany doesn't even wait until she's certain Wil is alone before she asks. "He looked like he wanted to kiss you."

"He always does," Aveline's lip curls in disgust. "It's...unsettling."

"Yes, he kissed me, Beth," Wil closes the door behind her, locking it immediately as she does so. From the corner of her eye, she sees her sister's face light up. Normally, she'd give up the trick right there, but tonight she's feeling little cruel. To her sister _and_ herself. "We kissed, then he confessed his undying love for me."

"Really? Like Father did with Mother?"

"Oh, yeah. It was unbelievably _romantic_" Wil leans back, her eyes rolling upward as she sighs a dreamy little sigh. "Then he screwed me right there on the front steps for everyone in the slums to see."

Bethany deflates. "You're an asshole, Mina."

"What? You don't believe me? I had, like, five orgasms."

"I did _not_ need to hear that!"

Aveline scowls. "Nobody needed to hear that."

Wil shrugs, suddenly the epitome of nonchalance. "He yelled at me, told me to be careful, and then ran off. It was like...the anti-kiss. I don't know why you expected more."

She's says that last while looking Bethany in the eyes, but it's not meant for her sister. Not at _all_.

* * *

><p><strong>Note from SF:<strong> I realized as I edited this that nothing really happens in this chapter. Also, did I understate Tarohne's crazy? I don't know if I love or hate the heavy-handed character design for her, since it's all such a delightful mess of insanity.

Finally, I'd like to say thank you to Evilnor, for pointing out a few confusing bits in my last chapter. You're awesome!


	15. Regrets

"Do I look like I know how to 'make camp'?" Varric's voice is honed to an uncharacteristically sharp edge, in no small part due to his current predicament. He'd been tasked with arranging the bed rolls while Mina, Aveline, Isabela and Fenris went in search of firewood.

What he _hadn't_ realized was that Isabela was using hers as a pack. Thinking he could just unfurl it and lay it next near the fire pit, he'd inadvertently loosed an unknowable amount of her possessions into the shadowed opening of the cave that existed beyond the light emanating from Bethany's staff.

"Oh! I think most of it went...that way!" Bethany thrusts her stave in the general direction, which is also directly into Varric's face.

"Ow, Sunshine. No need to live up to your name," he pushes it away with a faint frown. "I don't know which would be worse- losing it all, or finding it. If you know what I mean."

Bethany feels her brow furrow as she shakes her head. "No! I don't."

Then she remembers the package Isabela had taken with her from the Gallows and how she'd pulled Mina aside to show her its contents. Isabela's laughter had echoed off the docks, throaty and charming, and Mina's cheeks had definitely reddened, even as she kept her own amusement behind a bit lip. Later that evening Bethany had managed to get the _vaguest_ description of Isabela's purchase from her sister.

"Why would she need something like _that_ here?"

Varric's cringe is all the answer Bethany needs.

"Gross, gross, gross," but she can feel her face warming as they search the edges of the cave. She has a dim awareness that it probably shouldn't excite her the way it does, but...she'd never even been _touched_ by someone else, outside of the handful of Lothering farm boys that had managed to sneak past Carver and Mina to tug on her hair. None tried more than once; her brother was large and her sister had a tendency to threaten lives and limbs. Not out of concern for Bethany's virtue, of course. Mina, especially, would laugh in the face of _that_ notion. But maintained _virtue_ had been an unfortunate side effect of their general efforts to simply protect her.

But that was Lothering. Kirkwall's different. Her _life_ is different. She's allowed to go to bars, to drink and play cards. To flirt and be flirted with. Not that she was good at either. She and her siblings had not been raised to think in terms of romantic involvement. Their parents were madly in love, but _they_ were encouraged to keep to themselves, just in case. This made their interactions with other children, and potential suitors, timid and ever fraught with the potential for discovery. Carver and Mina had overcome their lack of social graces by being attractive and willing.

Bethany, though, was shy...fearful. She didn't know how in control she could be of her magic if she were not in control in other ways. She didn't know who she could trust to get that close in the first place.

She didn't know _what_ she wanted and, until recently, she'd never even thought she'd get to experiment, to flirt and be flirted with. To hear sex discussed with disarming frankness by other women who knew what they wanted and went for it…It's _exciting_, even when it's disconcerting.

"So do you know what we're getting ourselves into here?" Varric interrupts her mental rambling and she comes back with a frown.

"All I know is we should be careful what we say _and_ what we think around her," she closes her eyes and sees the witch's sly smile, her feral yellow gaze that spoke of unfathomable cunning. "She knows things, things that no one should."

He stares for a moment, his shoulders sinking. "Great. So not only do I have to sleep in the mouth of a cave, I might have my mind read by a crazy witch."

"A crazy witch _that_ _can turn into a dragon_," Mina's voice is sardonic. Back from the hunt, she's laden with goods. Under one arm is tucked a bundle of twigs and from the other hand swings four braces of freshly killed hare. Bethany's stomach does the same lurch it always does when she sees very small, very dead animals. Another one of the benefits of living in Kirkwall is that they no longer need to capture or kill their dinner.

Bethany stands, carefully balanced on the balls of her feet, lips already forming the offer to help skin the hare when Bello bounds from his place at Mina's heels and darts, as much as a beast his size can, past Bethany and into a still dark corner of the cave opening. Moments later he emerges victorious, his jaws working proudly against his prize as he saunters back towards Mina.

"What in the Maker's name is...," Mina's voice shoots up, juiced by disbelief and shocked laugter. "Oh, for _fuck's_ sake, Isabela!"

"_What_?" The pirate knows very well _what_ as she smacks Bello smartly on the nose and then extends an expectant hand. Peeved, the mabari drops his treasure on the ground at her feet and four sets of eyes drop with it. Isabela's roll upward in resignation of all the fun that will be made at her expense. Bethany pretends like she's not looking, but she can't help but steal a glance.

"Is that the _Knight-Commander_?" It gasps out and her fingers fly to cover her mouth.

"Possibly...although I don't think the Knight-Commander has stubble," Mina's head cocks. "And looking at it now, that spiky _tiara_ thing...not something I'd want _thrusting_ inside of me."

_Mina_. Bethany's chin falls to her chest in mortification.

Fenris chuckles, "I pointed that out when she bought it."

"The tiara slides _off_!" Isabela snatches it up and demonstrates. "See? And it's _multi-purpose_. You can use it to-"

"No," voice echoing off the stone behind them, Aveline's tone conveys an entire _world_ of _no_. "No, no, no, no. _No_."

"Seventhed by the man who has already had enough of that thing to last the rest of his lifetime," Varric's face flushes when he realizes how _that_ sounds. "Not that I..._shit_."

"Are you happy with yourself, Isabela? You've gone and made _Varric_ blush," Mina elbows her gently and receives a smirk and raised eyebrow in response.

"I think my happiness depends on the _reward_," she puts her toy back together and tosses it down on her bedroll. "We _did_ have a bet going on that, didn't we? It was who could make Varric blush, when will Sunshine finally break down and just start kissing strangers and who will be the first of us to bed you."

"The first to _bed_ me?" Mina hands the bundle of twigs to Aveline, who is building the fire. "Since when?"

Settled on his bedroll, Fenris peers up at Mina. "After the Bone Pit. It was _her_ idea," his head tilts towards Isabela. "In case you couldn't guess that on your own."

Bethany's lips twitch. Normally, she'd stay far, far away from this conversation, but tonight she wants things to feel different. She doesn't want to feel like the child in a room of adults.

"Aveline's the odds on favorite," she announces casually, her hands finally finding the strap dangling from her sister's hand. Mina is happy to relinquish it, and Bethany sees a spark of admiration in her eyes. Admiration and _bemusement_.

"Aveline, eh?" She shrugs. "I could do worse."

"You'll have to settle then," Aveline points to the fire and rolls back onto her heels to avoid getting caught when Bethany waves one delicate hand, flames flicking at her fingertips to bathe the twigs in licking orange light. "That means _never_."

"Come _on_, Aveline. Is there no part of you that can love me?" Mina pouts and flutters her eyelashes in mock flirtatiousness. "I'm nice...sometimes."

The red-haired woman pokes at the fire and shakes her head in resignation.

"You're very _rarely_ nice. You're also more trouble than you're worth, and about half as clever as you think you are," she stands, her eyes bearing down to meet Mina's in frank assessment. "You _are_ pretty skilled with a blade, though. And you've got a nice ass."

Fenris chokes on laughter, Isabela and Varric share knowing smirks and Bethany, sensing the creep of mortification along her spine, bites it back and lays the hares out near the fire. It's been a while since she's had to skin _anything_, but a few pokes with the dagger and it all comes back. She settles into her task while the others continue to joke around her.

"So why Aveline?" Mina kneels next to her sister. Four long sticks have been set aside to use as skewers and she begins to sharpen them with her own small blade.

"Why _not_ Aveline?" Running her fingers along the plunging neckline of her blouse, Isabela is only too happy to supply this information. "I just like to _think_ about it. Aveline has those amazing arms, that intensity, and _you're_ like a lanky, floppy-haired knight-errant...and you're both so tall and strong. It would be athletic and graceless and _amazing_."

"Holy _shit_, you've actually thought about it a _lot_," Mina pauses sharpening to stare back at the pirate. Bethany follows her gaze, and Isabela winks at her, her chestnut eyes gleaming with bawdy good humor.

_I wonder what it would be like to be Isabela. She has no inhibitions and doesn't feel any need to be anyone except who she is._ Bethany imagines what it would like to be _that_ comfortable in her own skin. Biting back a small wave of jealous admiration, she returns to the hares and listens to Mina and Isabela joke and flirt, Varric, Fenris and Aveline interjecting every so often.

Everyone is in such good spirits. It's _nice_...and almost familial.

After dinner Bethany and Wil, having drawn first watch, sit side by side, stargazing the way they'd done so many times when they lived on the outskirts of Lothering.

"I know things aren't prefect right now, Mina, but being in Kirkwall is making me see all the ways that our lives in Ferelden were..."

"Limited?"

"Yes," she leans her head back and catches a light streaking its way across the ebony sky. "Before we met Varric, I asked Aveline to look into the Circle for me...to see what they'd do with an apostate my age." She can feel Mina staring at her in distress. "I wanted to know if they'd accept me, should I turn myself in, and not just make me tranquil."

"_Turn yourself in?_" Even as an abstract musing, it hurts her. "Why would you...?"

_How could you?_ is what Mina wants to say. It's there in her voice. _How could you, after everything we've been through? How could you even _think_ of leaving me like that?_

"I was scared and...sometimes I think it would be easier for me, too. Not having to worry about templars, not having to feel like I'm holding you back from what you really want to be doing," Bethany's fingers curl against the stone beneath her as she fights back a growing warmth in her eyes.

Exasperated, Mina spins so that she's facing Bethany straight on. "And what, pray tell, do you think I really want to be doing? I'm not asking to be an ass, I'm asking because I honestly don't know what I _could_ be doing besides this. My talents aren't exactly varied, Beth. I'm what I am as much as you are."

"But you don't have to be," Bethany's assertion is raw, and she wonders how a positive comment on how she feels as if she's finally settling into their new life had turned into something heavier. "You could have been a soldier, like Carver or Aveline. Or a guard. You could have gotten married, or be thinking about getting married, and having your own family. You-"

"_Fuck_," Mina kicks Bethany's leg with the flat of her foot. "Not only would I make the _worst_ soldier, or guard, or wife...what kind of person would I be if I preferred any life where you were imprisoned?"

"_I_ wouldn't hold it against you if you did," Bethany's hand absently rubs along where Mina's boot had hit her. "But what I was trying to say was that, on nights like tonight, I feel normal."

"Oh, Beth," Mina returns to her original position, legs stretched in front of her. "This isn't exactly _normal_."

"Maybe not," her eyes remain on her sister. "But I like it."

From the thoughtful pull of Mina's mouth and the way she remains silent, Bethany gets the impression that _she_ remains undecided.

* * *

><p>"So. How stupid are we if we just go on up to their camp like this?" Wil frowns down at her blood soaked tunic, the unfortunate side effect of standing too close to an ill-fated mercenary who'd had his throat slashed open by Isabela.<p>

"They probably have scouts watching us right now," Fenris muses, his eyes narrowing as they scan the green-lined crags and outcroppings that lined and loomed over their path up Sundermount. "If they haven't shot us _yet_..."

"Comforting," from Aveline's tone, she finds it anything but. Frown lines creasing her brow, she shakes her head at Wil. "Can we even be certain that they know we're supposed to be coming?"

Wil doesn't immediately respond. The wind around them whips and whispers in turn and the overhead clouds that rush along to disappear behind the jagged crest of Sundermount are swollen shades of blue-edged steel.

_Sundermount_. Nothing good could happen at a place called _Sundermount_.

_But nothing good can come from whiffing on a promise made to the Witch of the Wilds, either. _

"I think we'll be all right, Aveline," she lets a smile brighten her words. "The fact that they're up here is a good sign. I can't imagine this is a place they'd want to call home if they didn't _have_ to."

As if to prove her point, a gust shoves its way up the mountain, tearing at everything on and around them that isn't tied down or strapped on. Aveline relents from within a tunnel of loosened ginger strands and Wil waves at Isabela and Bethany, who have been looting the fallen mercenaries.

"Find anything good?" Bethany is the first to arrive, her hands full of coin and trinkets.

"Look at this," she pushes one finger up to call a locket to Wil's attention. "I bet it's worth something."

Wil plucks it off of her sister's palm. The chain is delicate and, even coated with grit from being in some merc's pocket, the luster of the fine silverite is impossible to miss. The locket itself is oblong and set with a large, flawless amethyst that has been polished smooth rather than faceted. Wil presses her thumb against a tiny protrusion along the seam and it pops open with no difficulty to reveal a miniature portrait of a young man with ebony hair that swoops across a high forehead. The opposing window contains a tiny inscription:

"_Meghan Vael, you are my light. Love Always, Francis_," Wil snaps the locket closed and tosses it back to Bethany. "Sweet. It should be worth at least a couple silver."

"You'd probably get more from the prince who wants these mercs dead." Not looking up from a wounded Bianca, Varric continues, "Meghan should be his...niece or sister."

"Oh." _Duh, Wil._ "Then we'll...try to extort money from him for the memento of a dead loved one?" Her nose wrinkles. "I'll probably just _give_ it back."

"See, now that _is_ admirable," Aveline's already heading up the path. "It's not so hard, is it?"

"It depends," Wil jogs to catch up with the taller woman. "Are you any more likely to _love _me?"

Aveline face tries its best to remain stern, but Wil, her eyes wide and her smile as bright as it can possibly be, is doing her best to make it difficult.

"You know what, Hawke? One of these days I'm going to kiss that grin right off of your face."

"I knew it!" Wil's voice rings with triumph and she's about to inquire into the amount of _tongue_ that might be involved in said kiss when she sees the first of the Dalish warriors that guard the way to their camp.

They watch with bows at the ready and eyes that gleam danger, even at a distance. The leather plates they wear over colorful undershirts and hose are finely-wrought and, as Wil and her company get closer, she sees that the woman's cuirass is woven strips of leather, some painted green for contrast, and the man beside her has a hunting scene carved into his.

_How arrogant are you that they have their weapons on you and you're admiring their armor? _ Wil blinks and forces herself to focus more on the posture of the elves and less on what they're wearing.

"Halt, shemlen," the man speaks first, his hard gaze never leaving Wil's face and his bow unwavering. "Your kind are not welcome amongst the Dalish."

_Shemlen_. Sorrell had warned her that she'd be getting an earful of _shem_ when she came up here and had started using in intimate moments as a joke. All it had done was make her feel _strange_ to hear it used now like a _slur_.

"Trust me, I would _not_ have traipsed up this hill if I didn't have to," she withdraws the amulet from a pouch on her belt and offers it up for scrutiny. "I was asked to come here to deliver this to a Marethari?"

The man scowls, but he and the woman both lower their bows. "Marethari? How do you know that name?"

"Wait," the woman, who has returned her arrow to its quiver, holds up one hand to quell her partner's doubt. "This is the one the keeper has been expecting."

"A shemlen?" It sounds different now that Wil is _expected_. There's surprise in the elf's expression, but no more violent wariness. "I thought it would be an elf."

"Go ahead to the camp, stranger. Keeper Marethari will be waiting by the fire," the female elf points towards a cluster of wooden caravans just past a pair of stone block pillars. Crimson flags mark the boundary of the camp proper and Wil is suddenly, and strangely, apprehensive about crossing.

The man's renewed glare isn't helping with her apprehension.

"Cause any trouble, and you'll wish you'd not _traipsed up this hill_."

"_Quite_," an admonished Wil passes between them, now more cautious than she'd been on her approach. Her eyes roam over the scene at camp and she marvels at how similar it is to the square in front of their tenement. There are women tending to the wash as it twists in the wind, yanking at a thick rope strung between two caravans. There are hunters, female and male both, with their newly caught game spread out on flat stones so they can skin and divide the meat as efficiently as possible.

Children dart between the legs of their parents, calling back and forth in the same sweet voices that Wil is used to hearing at home. One little boy stumbles into her hip, his hands catching her waist for balance as the impact catches them both by surprise.

"Oh!" He's startled but not afraid as he realizes what she is. "A shemlen! Pol said you'd be coming," he staggers back a few steps and scratches at a thatch of thick auburn hair. Luminous grey eyes flit between Wil and her party, stopping to linger on Fenris. "I've _never_ seen vallaslin like that before."

"These markings are not your blood writing," Fenris' tone is surprisingly cordial. "I am not of the Dalish."

"Huh. That's odd," he's back to Wil with a smile when he realizes that a pack of eager little girls are bearing down on him. " Ghilan'nain help me, they'll kill me!"

He skitters away before Wil can offer any protection and his hunters break around her group to continue their pursuit.

"How cute!" Bethany muses. "The children in Kirkwall look...meaner."

"I think we'd _all_ look meaner if we'd been raised in Kirkwall...no offense, Varric," Hawke shoots him an apologetic smirk.

"None taken, Hawke."

"So," she's musing out loud, which is always dangerous. "I take it the elderly, _regal_ one by the fire is our Marethari."

"It's probably in your best interest to not _openly_ mock the most revered member of their clan," Fenris glances towards the solitary figure clad in plain gold robes. "But, yes. She probably is."

"Then let's get this finished, then," her fingers curl around the amulet and she leads them towards the woman, mindful of the numerous eyes that have settled upon them in their journey from the edge of camp to its center.

By the time they reach her, it feels as if Marethari is the only elf within a five mile radius that isn't staring at Hawke with the expectation that she's one second from doing something insane. Instead, the Keeper continues to stare into the fire, a faint smile curving her lips. Her thin white hair is pulled away from her face and worn in an elaborate knot that exposes the markings that curve and curl across her forehead, cheeks and chin. They are faded, distorted by the age lines that indicate her time spent wondering has been very long indeed.

As it seems the Keeper is in no hurry to acknowledge her and her strange band of companions, Wil clears her throat and interrupts the woman's meditations as politely as she can.

"Uh, Marethari? I have an amulet for you. I probably should have gotten here a little sooner, but...things came up," Wil inwardly curses herself. _Things came up? Yes, tell the elf all about your indentured servitude. I'm sure she'd be sympathetic. _

If the Keeper finds Wil rude, she makes no indication. Instead she turns and maintains her serene smile, taking the amulet from Wil's fingers and examining it from several angles. _She doesn't flinch_, Wil notes. _Whatever is..._in there_, she knows._

"Andaran atish'an, travelers," her voice also betrays her age, but there is a pleasant rolling quality to it. "Indeed, I am Keeper Marethari. Come closer...I want to get a better look at you."

_Um_. Wil smiles awkwardly and takes a tentative step forward. Now that the amulet is out of her possession, she's praying that her life hasn't suddenly become forfeit. Or that she's not going to be asked to sacrifice herself or something equally insane and unpleasant.

"There is a light in your heart, human. Don't let it go out...you will need it in the coming days," her eyes shine warmth up at Wil and it's kind and discomforting that she can see anything but random musings and fear within her. "So, tell me how this duty fell to you, child?"

"A dragon fell from the sky, charred some darkspawn, then asked me to bring you this amulet," Wil laughs, grateful for an opportunity to vent her nerves. "No big deal!"

"You are blessed by luck, then," a cryptic response at best. "I will pray that Mythal watches over your path."

Wil has no idea who _Mythal_ is, but she has a feeling any explanation they'd give would be...taxing. Instead of asking, she nods at the amulet that has slipped through Marethari's knobby fingers to swing gently in the air between them, glowing warm in the light of the fire. "So, can you tell me what exactly I've been carrying around? I assume that it's magic."

"It is a promise, child," she lifts it in offering and Wil reclaims it. Either the Keeper's touch or the bonfire have made it hot, and almost uncomfortably so against Wil's palm as she grasps it. "A promise made by one whose word still has weight, which means that it has _terrible_ power. There are few things in this world stronger than a promise kept. Remember that."

Marethari's words snake within her, entangling in her conversation with Beth from the evening before, and from that joining a single memory of her father emerges...

_"You're the only one I can trust to keep them safe, Mina," his voice falters, as if the remainder of his life is to be measured in syllables. "Remember..."_

_"They're mine. Always...and no matter what," tears are coursing in an unstoppable stream down her cheeks but she smiles for him, for herself. "Of course I will. It's what I do."_

"Your task," Marethari interrupts Wil's thoughts before anything embarrassing can happen. "The amulet is to be taken to an altar at the top of the mountain, and given a Dalish rite. You will then return the amulet to me. Do this, and you owe us nothing more."

Wil pockets the amulet. "Are you going to teach me this rite? I can see it going _horribly_ awry."

"I will send my First with you," a mixture of pride and sorrow filters into Marethari's voice. "She will see to it the ritual is done. And then I must ask that you take her with you. When you leave."

_What?_ "You mean..._her_, your First?" Wil blinks a few times in confusion. She hadn't expected something like this. "Take her back to _Kirkwall_? To live? With _me_?"

"I do not know the details, but I trust she will find her own dwelling," from the way her eyes grow distant, Marethari sees this lack of knowledge as a personal failure. "It is her wish, and I must grant it. You'll find Merrill waiting for you on the trail just up the mountain. Dareth shiral."

She turns back to the fire, her face falling into the same guarded, faintly amused expression that she'd worn as they'd approached.

The only thing that has changed at all is Wil's perspective. And the temperature of the amulet, which is now doing its best to brand itself into her skin before she can slide it back into her pouch.

* * *

><p>If Marethari is regal, her first is...not.<p>

"Oh! I didn't hear!" Merrill's eyes peer curiously from beneath a shock of raven hair that tumbles across her pale brow. She's young, all awkward angles and nerves. "You must be the one the Keeper told me about." She pauses her rambling to lower her head in a formal greeting. "Aneth ara." Then the panic returns, and she's covering her mouth with long, slender hands. Her fingernails are bitten close. "I'm so sorry, I didn't ask your name. Unless...it's not rude to ask a human their name, is it? I'm Merrill, which you probably knew already. I'm...talking. A lot. Sorry."

"Great. Another one." Wil doesn't need to see him to know that Fenris' eyes are rolled upward.

_Ass._ Wil offers the petite elf a smile that she hopes is a good combination of _it's ok_ and _you can punch him, nobody here will mind _too_ much._ "You'll have to work much, _much_ harder than that to offend me. And my name's Hawke."

Not Wilhelmina...or Wil. It seems...off-limits.

Merrill sags in relief. "_Thank you._ Your kind make me...nervous. Not because! I just haven't had much experience. You know." She coughs, glances over Wil's shoulder to Bethany, then back to Wil. "Ferelden. You sound Fereldan. I spent most of my life there. We only came north a few years ago. Have you been in the Free Marches long? Do you like it here?"

Surprised that she's even able to suss a coherent narrative out of _that_, Wil shrugs. "I miss the cold. And the _dirt_. Kirkwall's not _unrelentingly_ brown enough for me. But hey, no darkspawn!"

"Ferelden wasn't that brown! The dirt and muck gave it character," she sounds uncertain and follows with a sigh. "We should go. Your task is for Asha'Bellanar. She's not known for her patience."

"So you know the witch who sent me here?" Wil begins up the path, Merrill falling into step beside her, her gait delicate.

"Only through stories. You're very lucky. Most people who meet Asha'Bellanar wind up in little pieces," she laughs uneasily. "Hanging from the trees."

_Who would have guessed that I'd be called lucky twice in an hour?_ "What do we have to do with the amulet?"

"It's a funeral of sorts that I'll perform at the top of the mountain. It's easy. Getting there is the tricky part," she gestures ahead. "Our hunters haven't been able to get up there, and there's been a collapse so we'll have to go through a passage in the mountain."

"Anything else I should know about?" Wil's eyes are roving over the ascent. There's a wide expanse up ahead that's sitting between two crevices. If there are any beasts about, it's a nice place for an ambush. Once their group enters the open area, it will be easy enough to block their way forward and back.

"Um..." Merrill's _um_ is worrisome.

"Mina! On your right!" A hot _whoosh_ flies past Wil's head and she ducks automatically, pulling a very startled Merrill down with her. Behind her, she can hear Fenris, Aveline and Isabela drawing their weapons and Bianca whirring into action.

"_Skeletons_." There might be ten, there might be closer to twenty. It's hard to tell because their armor blends into the terrain around them and their bones are coated in fresh soil. Wil turns to tell Merrill to find shelter, but the petite woman is already on the move, running towards Bethany's side as she casts a spell that turns the air around her hand a putrid shade of brown and engulfs a nearby skeleton in a matching fog.

_Another mage? Awesome._

Wil draws her weapon, locking in on the enemy closest to her sister. With Merrill and Varric beside her, Bethany shouldn't be in too much danger from anything but the archers and Isabela and Bello had a cluster of four in their sights.

Careful to not get caught in any of the spells being flung about, Wil aims herself at a second pair of archers who are positioned around the bend in the path, and up a slight incline. With everyone else easily, and showily, handling the rest of the horde, she's able to flank one before it sees her. Striking at its wrist, she's able to knock its entire hand free from its arm. The resultant flail alerts its partner to her presence and she's barely able to dodge the filth-coated arrow meant for her heart.

Fortunately, the parry puts her in an excellent position to swing her blade out wide, catching both skeletons at their necks to send two skulls flying. They land with soft thumps up the path and the bodies topple with satisfying clatters. Sounds of combat have ceased behind her and, when she turns back, everyone is already regrouping.

Merrill and Bethany remain together, away from the others who are eyeing the elf with suspicion. Well, Fenris and Aveline eye her with suspicion. Varric and Isabela are too busy checking their boots for scuffing.

"Wow, Merrill," Wil sheaths her sword as she approaches. The woman's skittish enough as it is, no use in _purposely_ intimidating her. "The Keeper didn't mention you were a mage."

Fenris sneers, "I imagine it's difficult to give away something nobody wants."

Taking it far better than Wil would have, Merrill merely nods. "All Keepers know a bit of old magic. The stories tell us that all elvhen once had the gift."

"Anders told me that the Chantry knows about the Dalish mages...aren't you worried about templars?"

"Yes. That's one of the reasons we never camp too long in one place. They usually won't pursue us if we stay away from cities and keep moving."

"And no one minds having to move, over and over, just to protect a few of you?" Bethany's right to be shocked. From what their father had told them, many families preferred to hand their offspring to the templars when they first showed signs of magic. Either they were frightened of their own children or worried that _they_ might be imprisoned for harboring them. "Why would they do that?"

"Why _wouldn't_ they?" Merrill's genuinely surprised. "We leave anyway, once we've hunted an area well enough."

It's a good, and practical, point. Wil studies the young Dalish for a moment, trying to see past the impossibly slender limbs and innocent green eyes. "You do realize that, in Kirkwall, you'll be an apostate in a city full of templars. _Mean_ templars, too."

"I know." It's the truth."But if I don't go, I'll be alone. A solitary elf is easy prey for anyone, but in a city, I can get lost in the crowd. Or hide in a building somewhere." Despite the ache of deep-seated desperation that colors it, Merrill's voice remains firm. "I'll do what I must. It is my responsibility."

_And you cannot sway me,_ her expression says it louder than any words_. If Marethari cannot, then you have no hope._

"Okay, okay," Wil begins away, her minding already trying to figure out how all of this is going to work. _Where will she stay? How can we keep her safe? Is Anders attracted to elven women?_

_Dammit, Wilhelmina._ She stops to force _that_ thought right out of her mind and catches Merrill watching her, concern tightening her features.

"I don't care that you're a mage, Merrill," Wil smiles crookedly. "As a matter of fact, I find them quite helpful. Feel free to keep turning skeletons into toads for us."

Her already pink cheeks deepen to scarlet as she fumbles over her words, "But I never? Right. Not _literal _toads. Happy to help."

_That_ seems slightly less true.

* * *

><p>An hour and way more gigantic spiders than Wil has ever wanted to encounter in her lifetime later, she and Merrill are standing in front of a shimmering blue veil of magic. Beyond the undulating wall are piles of stones that Merrill patiently explains mark the final resting spot for the Dalish elders.<p>

"In the days of Arlathan, the elders came here to sleep. _Uthenara_. The endless dream, they called it. But they're restless now, so we'll have to be careful," she pauses to examine the veil, her movements tiny, quick and birdlike. "I can open the way forward, but you'll need to step back."

Wil does as instructed, rejoining her companions who have been keeping their distance.

Merrill stands still, her feet staggered in a battle posture and her hands facing away from her and held parallel to the wall. From where Wil stands, it almost appears as if she's blessing it. After a few moments, she pulls a small stone dagger from her belt and places the blade flat against her palm.

_Oh, no._ Wil doesn't want to watch, but she has to be on her guard, just in case.

With a quick, practiced, gesture Merrill draws the dagger quickly across her hand and immediately directs the ensuing spray of blood towards the wall. It's nothing like Wil has ever seen before, a crimson mist that seems improbably large compared to the woman who'd produced it. Like Anders' spell to release Keran from Tarohne's trap, this seems to consume whatever magic had created the barrier, dissolving it from the ground up.

It also smells foul, like rotten wood and rusted steel. Less like blood than useful things gone to waste.

With the barrier gone, Merrill wipes at her hand with a stained silk cloth. Having been slashed open enough times to be familiar with blood loss, Wil's surprised that the woman is even able to stand, let alone tend to her wound before turning back to those who followed her, her eyes defensive and her mouth tense.

Fenris gets the first words in, disgust winding its way through every syllable in that _way_ he has. "Blood magic? Foolish. _Very_ foolish."

"Yes, it was blood magic," Merrill is quick to admit it, to explain. Wil wonders if _this_ isn't why they were accosted on the path up the mountain by one of Merrill's clan mates, a wild-eyed young hunter who had seemed abnormally hateful towards her. Wil isn't familiar enough with Dalish customs to know if blood magic is as feared amongst their numbers as it is humans. "Listen, I know what I'm doing. The spirit I summoned helped us, didn't it?"

She sounds like Wil had when she was seventeen and trying to explain to her parents why getting caught half naked in the Cleary's barn with _both_ of their sons was totally, totally _fine_. The big difference, however, was that Wil was just being a stupidly greedy teenager while Merril is playing at something that can destroy even a powerful magister...and take cities down with it.

"Sure, demons are _very_ helpful...right until they take your mind and turn you into a monster," Wil does not bother to hide her disproval. Then, as if to soften the lecture, "And you'd be a _terrible_ monster."

"Well...wait. Would I? Why? Oh, never mind," she blushes, and goes back to stubborn defiance. "But that won't happen. I know how to defend myself."

"If you say so," Wil's in no mood to press. There's a creepy elf graveyard to traverse and, in the distance, a large stone altar that she's fairly certain is their destination.

But first are more skeletons, these draped in tatty burial shrouds and bearing ancient elven weapons that glow with ethereal energy. Were Wil not itching to get this task done, she might be willing to pause and admire the eerie beauty of the long and honored dead fighting to protect their disturbed lands, defending their eternal slumber against their own and her allies.

But she is itching, and always impatient, so she plows ahead as if these bones belong to the same faceless raiders who haunt the streets of Kirkwall at night.

They fall easily, no match for seven capable fighters and a warhound. Wil cannot even wait for the last body to fall, her stride towards the altar a sudden and furious march. The amulet, and the task it represented, had been an easy enough thing to forget when confronted with the realities of life in Kirkwall. Now, though, she can feel it humming, burning and the close she gets to the altar the more the air around her seems to tremble with a frightening amount of power.

"Let me have the amulet," Merrill is at her elbow and plucks it out of Wil's opened pouch. Her eyes narrow the moment her fingers touch the metal, but she does not waver in her duty, holding it aloft for several seconds before she lays it neatly on the stone bench.

"Now what?" Wil stares at it, half expecting it to explode, or for a hand to reach out and drag her back to the Void. But it remains motionless, innocuous even.

Merrill waves her back and bows her head, her hands raised in offering. "Hahren na melana sahlin," her voice, so fidgity before is rich now, nuanced and refined. "Emma ir abelas souver'inan isala hamin vhenan him dor'felas. _In uthenera na revas_."

She holds her pose.

Wil holds her breath.

The ground shudders, the sky around them disappears, obscured by light like a flaming curtain that spins, surrounds and engulfs them.

She's here. Wil's stomach clenches, and her mouth becomes so dry that her tongue feels stuck against her teeth and like they might remain that way forever.

Eventually the light focuses, pulling into one tumultuous beam in front of the altar that takes a familiar form- tall and voluptuous and completely mad, yellow eyes gleaming in triumph and hips, shoulders, breasts and buttocks moving in small swaying motions as if this body is new and she needs to test it out.

It looks the same as the body she'd had before, clad in the same studded leathers. Even her hair is the same, that wild mane of white and the dangerous horns that hint at what she really is beneath her time worn facade.

"A witch!" Fenris hisses it, as if the rest of them might have her confused for the Grand Cleric.

"Calm yourself," Aveline's voice is low, reassuring. Wil wonders what she's feeling. Flemeth had, after all, been the one to announce that her husband would not survive his corruption. Seeing her again must be painful, not that Aveline allows any of that to show when she can be playing the Captain. "We know this one."

Merrill glances at Wil, her eyes curious. Wil nods consent and the elf lowers herself in a stately curtsy, "Andaran atish'an, Asha'Bellanar."

Flemeth regards her, curiosity warming her eyes. "One of the People I see," she speaks with the same subtle hiss. "So young and bright. Do you know who I am, beyond that title?"

Remaining bowed, Merrill shakes her head. "I only know a little."

"Then _stand_," like she's a ruler meeting an old friend. "The people bend their knee too quickly."

"Oh," Merrill straightens, clearly flummoxed by Asha'Bellanar's odd familiarity.

Flemeth, however, has turned her attention to Wil. Her mouth pulls up at the corner, clearly remembering the girl from Lothering, the one who had been blockading her own heartbroken guilt at allowing Carver to get himself killed behind an unceasing stream of jokes and silly questions.

"Look at you," it's like a mockery of admiration. "It's so refreshing to see someone who keeps their end of a bargain. I half-expected my amulet to end up in a merchant's pocket."

Wil smiles, her tongue miraculously coming unstuck, "The best offer I got was three copper. _Maybe_ because it had a witch inside."

"Hmm," Flemeth smirks and shakes her head. "Just a piece. A _small_ piece, but it was all I needed. A bit of security, should the inevitable occur. And if I know my Morrigan, it already has."

_Morrigan_. The name tingles along the back of Wil's mind and tries to find reference where there is none. "Is Morrigan someone I should know?"

"She's a girl who thinks she knows what is what better than I, or anyone," Flemeth laughs her sharp, dry laugh and this time it's real pride on her face. "And why not? I raised her to be as she is! I cannot expect her to be less!"

"I'm not sure whether she's your daughter or your enemy."

"Neither is she, my dear," Flemeth's brow raises and she cuts her gaze to Fenris, who has been silent at Wil's right elbow since his earlier outburst. "Yes?"

"You are no simple witch," awe has replaced his typical disdain. "I have seen powerful mages, spirits and abominations. But _you_ are none of those things. What _are_ you?"

She regards him, her gaze picking him over like crows hunched over a fresh carcass."Such a curious lad. The chains are broken, but are you _truly_ free?"

Wil can hear him shifting behind her, the soft clanking of his cuirass against his sword. No doubt he's uncomfortable with all of them hearing her assessment, although there's something close to respect in his response, "You...see a great deal."

"I do," it's a gift and a burden. "But to answer your question...I am a fly in the ointment. I am a whisper in the shadows. I am also an old, _old_ woman. More than that? You need not know."

"A whisper?" Wil's eyes narrow. "But you're more than a vision, aren't you? If I was foolish enough to touch you..."

"Do you think I should be in only one place?" She chuckles. "Bodies are such limiting things. I am but a fragment cast adrift from the whole. A bit of flotsam to cling to in the storm!"

"A fragment?"

"And flotsam! But you do not need to understand, child," there is something disconcertingly tender in her tone that underlines the gratitude she's trying to express. "Know only that you may have saved my life, just as I once saved yours. An even trade, I think."

_This is it?_ Wil wonders. _Debt's settled, nothing more than good-bye? That seems unlikely, but here's to hoping..._"You have business to attend to, I'm sure."

The witch wavers for a moment, her hand curled thoughtfully against her chin as she regards Wil with far more care than she'd previously shown.

"Destiny awaits us both, dear girl. We have much to do," Flemeth hesitates and, suddenly, she looks as old as she claims to be. "Before I go, might I offer a word of advice?"

_Advice? _Wil nods, struck dumb at the idea that anyone would refuse such an offer. It seemed most _unwise_.

"Smart girl," she winks and turns her back to Wil, arms held out to embrace the sky before them. "We stand on the precipice of change. The world fears the inevitable plummet into the abyss. And _you_..." she turns back to Wil, every ounce of her considerable charisma focused on the refugee turned smuggler turned glorified Lowtown thug as if she might very well be the most important person in the world...or close to it. "Watch for that moment...and when it comes, do not hesitate to _leap_." Her voice is lowered, but the words burn and brand themselves into Wil's memory. "It is only when you fall that you learn whether you can _fly_."

The witch waits for it, _expects_ it. She knows who she's dealing with, after all.

"Cheap advice from a _dragon_," Wil scoffs. "It's not so hard to leap if one has wings."

"Well, we _all_ have our challenges," Flemeth's head goes back in laughter. "Maybe you could try becoming one yourself, instead of _fearing_ your blood. But be careful not to get confused. Don't want to accidentally slay yourself!"

Behind Wil, Bethany groans, "We're going to regret bringing her here, Mina."

This saddens Flemeth, her eyes softening. When she speaks, she does not address Bethany alone, but both Hawke sisters, "Regret is something I know well. Take care not to cling to it, to hold it so close that it poisons your soul," she turns to Wil alone. "When it comes times for your regrets, remember me. Do _not_ forget."

_As if I _ever_ could._

The witch turns away, her hair sweeping in a wind of her own creation. Chin tilting towards Merrill, she extends a hand. "As for you, child, step carefully. No path is darker than when your eyes are shut."

Muted defiance flashes in Merrill's eyes, but she bows in reverence."Ma serannas, Asha'Bellanar."

"Now I must leave," she's reverting to that beam of light, although she still sounds so very human. "You have my thanks...and my sympathy."

Then, with a swirling of flame-colored air and the buffering of massive wings, she's gone. Taken to the sky to go Maker knows where to wreak Maker knows what kind of havoc.

_Because of me._ Wil swallows hard, shaken to her core by all the _foreboding_. _Will _this_ be what I most regret? Will my keeping a promise be what undoes the world?_

_Maker. That would be _just_ my luck. _

* * *

><p>Camp is solemn that evening, all of them weary from their ascent to the top of Sundermount and the battles fought there. After dinner had been eaten, and the fire allowed to fade to smoldering embers, most retired to their bedrolls. Besides Wil, only Fenris and Merrill remain up.<p>

Fenris is next to her at the edge of camp. He'd not been as disappointed to pull watch with her as she'd expected, although he's, unsurprisingly, a far more taciturn partner than Bethany had been.

Instead of stars, they watch Merrill, who is pacing on the other side of the clearing they'd claimed for the evening. From where they sit she's just blurred flashes of pale skin and the occasional glint from chainmail sleeves. Wil would be lying if she didn't admit that part of the pall cast over their group had been the elf's own demeanor. Despite her efforts to remain stoic as they left the Dalish camp, her people and her home, more than once Wil had caught her wiping away freshly fallen tears, or ducking her head to hide moist eyes.

Attempts had been made, by herself and Bethany, to offer some distraction (Wil) or comfort (Bethany), but Merrill had put them off with murmured words of gratitude that existed only on her tongue, nothing done to placate her own distressed heart.

"Kirkwall is going to _destroy_ her," Wil frowns into darkness. "The templars, the suffering. The _walls_."

"But she_ knows what she's doing_," Fenris' mocking response is a surprise. "She can protect herself, I think."

The bitterness is _not_ a surprise and she holds her tongue.

His own, however, has been loosened. "You're not a fool, Hawke. How is it that you are so blind to the threat that these mages pose? Even Betha-"

He stops at the end of her frosty glare and reroutes his assertion.

"All mages are susceptible to the call of demons, and you have two with you who have already succumbed. How will you feel when the mage finally loses control and becomes pure vengeance? What will you do when Merrill's demon wins? Will you not feel responsible for the lives lost?"

Wil's jaw remains tight, her eyes narrowed in anger that she can hardly restrain. The foundation of his argument is that of the Chantry's, the wrong-minded notion that those with the _potential_ to become abominations should be treated as if it is an inevitability that they _will_ fall. But within his words is a strand of truth. Anders and Merrill _were_ one step closer than the average Circle mage to the _monsters_ predicted by those who feared.

"I imagine that most of the magisters you knew in Tevinter turned to blood magic because they desired something for themselves," Wil glances back at him. From the downward curve of his lips, she knows she's right. "Anders is working towards something bigger than himself, and doing selfless good in the process."

"You see selflessness, I see a man desperate to pay a debt," Fenris' hand goes up before she can press him on _that_. "I know you disagree, but we are here to protect the camp, not tear it down with our own arguments."

"Have you done anything to atone for those you've killed?" It's an unfair question; it's certain that his former master had demanded many lives be taken by Fenris' hand. "Surely it hasn't been _all_ slavers and bandits. There must be _some_ you regret killing...even _I_ have those."

His unyielding silence is all the answer she needs.

* * *

><p><strong>Note from SF: <strong>Another huge chapter that's heavy on game dialogue! The conversations are all important, though, which is why they're so meticulous.

Thanks: To you all again for reading and reviewing. I love the feedback!

Finally, this chapter is dedicated to Sandtigress, my guiding light on all things Dalishy.


	16. Honest

After Hawke leaves with the others, Anders slips into an old routine of not sleeping nearly enough, passing the night time hours scrawling out plans and ideas and memories that had flickered at the edges of his consciousness for a lifetime but refused to be allowed full light lest they interfere with his flirting and his fucking and his unceasing plans for the next escape.

Now, with those three things behind him, the memories come unabated. His father's cold fury when confronted with the barn gutted by Anders' hand, _an accident it was an accident and there had been a girl involved but she'd made it out safely, thank the Maker_. His mother's face is stiff with dried tears when he gives her one final kiss good-bye. She can cry no more, exhausted and beyond heartbroken over the loss of her _kürbis_.

There's the first templar that ever captured him. Anders never knew the knight's face, only the echo of his voice and the threatening gleam of his eyes through the slit in his visor. He also recalls the way his gauntlet felt, digging into his bared wrist and how vulnerable he'd been, standing naked in front of the faceless man, his worn farm clothes and belongings stripped away for inspection before he's allowed amongst the other apprentices.

There's being pushed into tubs of frigid water, despite the fact that he could warm it with his hands if they'd only let him. There's being shoved into stone walls by templars twice his size, grown men who harass him and the other apprentices with anonymous immunity. The mages wear thin robes, their faces uncovered. The templars are wrapped in steel and they hide behind it like the cowards they are.

There's half-eaten meals, and assignations interrupted. Anders stands to the side while his partner is berated, or he is berated while his partner stands aside. After, they part in wordless silence and will probably never speak again.

Screwing around in the Tower usually ends in one of two ways.

There's Karl and that goes a little better and lasts a little longer, but Anders is foolish and uses Karl's access as a Senior Enchanter to sneak into Irving's office. It's made even worse by the fact that he only gets as far as The Spoiled Princess before he is caught.

All he does is sleep free for _one_ night, yet they take him with force, his bruised and bloodied body dumped into a holding cell equipped to negate magic. _This_ is his home for three days, until Karl is sent to release him, his blue eyes never quite meeting Anders' as he escorts him to Gregoir's office.

"This is my punishment, Anders," there is no anger in his voice, nor regret. He understands why Anders did it, he understands the younger man's desperate need to just not _be_ there anymore. Had things been different, Anders would have kissed him and maybe even uttered a not quite true _I love_ _you_. Instead he accepts this small offering of personal freedom and swears to the Knight-Commander that Karl had been a means to an end and _not_ a co-conspirator. Both are true, and Anders despises himself and the position life has placed him in.

There are other beatings, other mages who slip and fall, or jump. But Anders buries and convinces himself that his life isn't terrible. There are still attractive people he hasn't seen, and that one perfect escape is just around the corner.

He _knows_ it.

He's a lover. And Namaya is _useful_. Perhaps it's because she's been passed over so many times in her life, but she clings to Anders when he charms his way past her defenses. She does what he wants and, in the weeks that they are together, he never sees past this willingness to the woman within. He needs her help, not her, and her body is a nice way to pass the time until he manages to get out of Ferelden (unlikely) or recaptured (so very likely that it actually happens).

There's confinement and loneliness and a year spent forever on the edge of dehydrated starvation. Demons tempt, and demons are rejected. Mr. Wiggums visits, and Mr. Wiggums is slain. He cries, he prays, he imagines in increasingly graphic detail how he'd personally like to kill every templar he sees. But then he cries more because all the templars look the same and he might accidentally kill a decent one during his rampage and, despite what they might say to him (all of them, templar and demon) he is _not_ a monster.

And Namaya is not Karl, she does not _understand_, so she turns on him. _Maybe_. He can't really blame her, when he shows up to their rendezvous months late and with a well-appointed human woman at his side.

He's a lover. His commander is, too, and it's inevitable that they find each other in inappropriate places and delight in doing inappropriate things. She frees him from the Circle and he is so much lighter without chains. He's no longer being shoved, or pushed, or forced to think about what she can do _for_ him, although when she wants to move on...

There's the morning she leaves him, despite the way he pleads. He all but holds her down on the bed they've been sharing for months and, although she made him no promises, he swore he'd heard a few in the way she whispered his name in his ear, the way she always wanted him by her side, no matter the situation.

But she has a country that clamors for her, that depends on her far more than he does. And he'd be a burden in Denerim. No longer a fellow Warden, but her mage lover, the one who'd killed templars in Amaranthine and gotten away with it. So she chooses the king and leaves Anders to be recaptured, reclaimed by the templars with the Warden's support.

It's not what she wants to happen, of course. But it _does_.

He's no longer free.

And the chains...he'd forgotten how heavy they are, how they chafe and dig and scrape at his thoughts. They wear him down to a fine edge, until Justice's offer finds footing in his lonely desperation and it seems like a good idea, the right thing to do...

But it isn't, because of all the things he's _buried_.

Justice hates when he thinks this way, although it is _he_ who forces out these memories. He studies them, searches them for answers and ideas and fuel for their cause. And it works, because every memory is another scratch of Anders' quill as experience becomes reasons, and reasons become an argument and an argument becomes, he hopes, a _movement_.

_Perhaps even a revolution._

But that is to pass the nights when he's too wound or too tense to sleep. During the day he's in his clinic. He sends away all but one of his assistants in the hopes that working too hard and too long will wear him down. Then, in the evening, he is left with bodies to dispose of and nobody to aid in their removal. _If Wil were here..._

He doesn't eat enough. Lirene brings down some rations the morning after they'd left for Sundermount. Although the bag is familiar, painted with a windmill from when it was the property of a Lothering merchant, the food inside is not what Wil would send him. Hard tack, dried bits of mackerel and a few strips of oxen jerky. He's not disappointed, though.

As a matter of fact, he has a faint smile for most of the morning. Muriel tells him it's worrying his patients, so he stops.

By the third day he's past hunger and is the walking dead. And he's not alone- an outbreak of illness in Lowtown fills his clinic with enfeebled children and elderly, carried, dragged or rolled into his clinic in wheelbarrows.

One elderly woman, a widow who had, for three decades, been making pies every morning for the neighborhood children, collapses and dies on the steps near his doors. He keeps his all of his aids and sends one of them patrolling the undercity for more like her.

The aid finds a pair of orphans close to death and man lost amongst the labyrinthine mining tunnels, murmuring for his cat, Absalom, and half mad with fever.

It's chaos, and the days become indistinct until it's been a full week of living life the way he _would_ have been

_should be_

had he not been in possession of a couple of maps of the Deep Roads.

The lower class of Kirkwall are still in the grips of their influenza outbreak, and Anders is doing everything he can to help them get healthy enough to ride it out. Clean water is a scarce commodity in Lowtown, especially in a time of illness, and he spends most of his time boiling and treating cauldrons of seawater, which is then used to make herbal teas and sticky syrups that help keep fevers in check and stomachs settled.

His clinic, busy for days, is almost unbearably loud this morning. Many of his patients have been sick for nearly a full week and are now desperately dehydrated. A few have bedsores that need to be washed, treated and healed, if possible.

An old man dies while he waits, his peaceful rest becoming permanent with such subtlety that nobody notices until Anders goes to check on him and finds only a cooling shell.

"Can somebody..." he catches himself and scans the room. His assistants are all busied with their assignments. Sighing, Anders drapes the corpse with a threadbare wool cover and ignores the room spinning as he goes to walk away.

It keeps up.

After noon, a woman comes in, her hand mangled from something involving an iron press and Anders assures her that he does _not_ need to know the details, only that she's broken several bones and will probably need to lose her pinkie.

He's setting her hand when Muriel informs him that there have been two more deaths, both toddlers who might very well have been gone before they even reached his door. The parents cannot afford a cremation, so Anders tells them to lay the bodies out with the old man's. He'll get to them when he can.

He says it just like that, as if it's the wash or one of Varric's serials.

Children scream, women moan. One babbles incoherently, the intensity of her fever giving her hallucinations. Anders focuses on the patient in front of him, working to staunch the flow of blood before he resets her fingers and reassesses the damage-

"Momma! I just want to breeb! Why can't I _breeb_?"

He can see clear to bone, but stitches _should_ work-

"No, Mr. Goat! You _cannot_ eat my shoe! I need it for walking. Aloooooong the walls and…..up! To the ceiling."

-although, there's always the risk for infection and then she might lose her _entire_ hand.

"And then we walked down the stairs and up the stairs and down the stairs and around the corner and saw a man! He was short and smelled like _poop_."

But he hates to amputate when there's so much tissue still connected. He's not a butcher, after all, and he's salvaged worse than _this_.

"Did Sister tell you about the Viscount's boy? Says he's been seen with one of them ox men, that live by the docks? Out for a romantic walk on the coast, apparently. Can't see how old Dumar's going to deal with _that_ little rumor."

"I'd like to stitch it-" he begins.

"NO!" This voice belongs to the most strident child Anders has ever heard. "NonononoNONONOnoNO. NO!"

His vision swims, his chest aches, stomach feels coated in poison. _An inferno spell...I think an inferno _might_ make this place bearable._

"Serah?" The woman with the hand gasps it out and he's brought back to focus.

"Yes," he frowns, sweat trickling from his hairline and down his back. "I would like to salvage your finger, if possible. I'm going to use an ice spell to numb the area, then I'll stitch it..."

He settles into routine, the din around him fading long enough for him to finish and get her settled. She'll stay for the night, so he can make certain that her bones are setting straight and there's no signs of infection.

Hands bloody, he staggers to the basin to wash them, the weight of the world bearing down on his exhausted back until he tips forward, his head pressed against the wall. Still conscious, he remains that way until he's suitably clean and has regained his strength.

What's left of it.

Only then does he realize that the bodies had been missing from the table when he'd passed and it is not _concern_ that fills him but _relief_. He spins around and, sure enough, she's at one of the tables by the entrance, standing with Muriel, Bethany and a gangly elven woman he's never seen before. Their attention is on the small, strident girl and Wil is telling a story that involves a great deal of _arm flapping_ and the word _blorple_. _What in the Maker's name is _blorple_?_

_Already you are distracted._

"Shut up," he whispers and moves on to his next patient, who receives the full force of his quiet joy in the form of a wide but exhausted smile. "What brings _you_ in today?"

The young man glares at him for several seconds and then swerves his eyes to the far wall. "You see, ser...I've been. Um. _Ready_. For," his voice drops to a whisper, "_sex_, for almost two days now."

"Ready?" Anders repeats dumbly before it sinks in. "Ooooooh. You bought the bright red roots at that one stand that's by the _other_ stand in the bazaar, didn't you?"

"Aye." He looks absolutely dejected. "And now my wife _hates_ me."

Anders sees this sort of thing _a lot_ but, for some reason, today it makes him laugh.

_For _some_ reason. _

* * *

><p>It's after dark when the last of the patients that are <em>leaving<em> find their way out the door, along with the other assistants. Wil locks the world out behind them, knowing that Anders is more careful when he has overnight patients. There are only two this evening, a frail man with no place else to sleep and a woman whose hand is wrapped in layers of bloodied bandages.

Anders is treating her and, from what Wil can overhear, he seems to like this one.

_A lot._

"Well, my hands aren't the only part of me that are _nice_," his fingers are gentle around her wrist as he examines his handiwork from earlier in the day. He smirks at his patient, and even in his exhausted state, Wil thinks that it's…something worth wanting directed at _her_. "Or so I've been told."

The woman is too tired to do more than blush and glance away, her gaze falling on Wil, who feels suddenly mortified to have been caught eavesdropping.

_I'm not eavesdropping. I'm just concerned…Anders is clearly out of sorts and I'd hate for him to say something wrong or put a patient in danger because- Fuck it. I'm totally eavesdropping._

He offers the woman an elfroot potion laced with herbs that will help her sleep and, as she drifts off, _finally_ approaches Wil. She's only been waiting all day. Well, three days if she's being _honest_ and she really doesn't want to _be_ honest. She wants to lie to herself because it's probably the smart thing to do. To lie and tell herself that she hadn't missed Anders at all, that she hadn't thought about him more than a few times a day.

An _hour_.

_If_ she's being honest.

But she's here now, and _he's_ here and she has a tongue that can talk, which is what she wants to do. Just talk, and not betray the fact that she's been watching him all afternoon as he justifies her admiration with every patient saved. But there's something amiss because Anders isn't walking towards her but _ambling_, his gaze down in weird way and his eyes very unsubtly running along her neckline when he stops less than a foot away.

_Maker he's hot_, she feels it radiating from him along with a faintly sweet scent and the unmistakable musk of a man whose been worked ragged. His hair clings dark to his neck and is plastered against his forehead in a few places. He's also...almost vacant.

"Hey, there," he murmurs and it's intimate. _Suggestive_. "I think _you_ might actually be able to distract me from this _shithole_."

Eyes widening in surprise, Wil nearly trips over herself, "Shithole? I mean, it's not the prettiest place I've ever been to, but it helps people, and it's _yours_."

"And I stand by my assessment," he smiles crookedly, although his eyes have lost all focus. "Dingy and dark and full of..._sick_ people." Then, suddenly belligerent, "Did you know that I worked all day, and the most anyone offered me was a stuffed mouse? Andraste's tits, what could I even _do_ with that?"

Wil just stares, not quite certain what exactly is happening here.

"I suppose I could always tie a string to its leg, drag it around for Ser Pounce-a-lot," his face blossoms into a wide smile that dies seconds later. "No. I can't. I...almost forgot about Pounce. I should visit him the next time I'm in the area. See if he's finally learned that _fire-breathing_ trick I was trying to teach him."

_Oh, Anders. _Her mouthtwists in sympathy. Really, the last thing his brain needs is delirium_...or at least I _hope_ he's delirious and not _broken_._

"When was the last time you slept?" She keeps it just this side of a demand.

"Is _that_ what you've been waiting for all this time? Sleep?" He wavers, but smiles smugly. "I can't imagine why _anyone_ would do that."

"I've been _waiting_ to talk to you," she frowns. "It's a decision I'm starting to regret. Seriously...did you sleep at all while I was gone?"

He shrugs. "Sure."

"You _need_ to sleep." _Dammit. This is _his_ job._ "Have you eaten anything?"

"Hmmm," he's gone wolfish, all predatory amber eyes that roam and the slightest gleam of teeth. "And what were you thinking about feeding me?"

Wil takes an unconscious step back, feeling the faintest twinges of distaste. _You have to get him to eat something, force some medicine down his throat and then get him in to bed. _That last part shouldn't be _too_ hard. _Maker, where the fuck is Justice when you need him?_

She almost calls the bastard out, but it seems like a horrible idea because, chances are, if Justice isn't stopping Anders from his heavy-handed flirting, then attempting to summon him might just make an unfortunate situation worse. Instead, it seems smart to play along.

"Do you know where your bed is?" She inches closer.

"I _always_ know where my bed is, sweetheart."

That was _almost_ charming.

"The question is...," he begins to shiver, the tremor in his hands _violent_ but he ignores it. "Do _you_ know where my bed is?"

It's _less_ charming, and every second she's getting more worried, but she offers a flirtatious smile and nods anyway.

"Of _course_. Go on back and get ready...I'll join you in a few minutes with dinner." She holds onto her forced expression until he's managed to spin around, overshooting it at first and needing to readjust so he doesn't plow into a table, and begin back, the movements of his elbows indicating that he's already pulling at the fastens on his jacket and his stagger indicating that he _desperately_ needs her assistance.

Once he's fumbled his way into his room, she works as quickly as she can to gather what she needs, her time spent in his clinic actually proving useful. Her fingers brush along the tidy row of wooden boxes he uses to store his herbs and supplements until she finds the one labeled, in his surprising elegant script, _Willow Bark. _

She's been giving it to patients all day, but she knows he keeps the stronger reagents separate for those with exceptional need. He'll probably complain to her about it when he discovers that she plundered his supply, but she's good to get him more.

On his desk in the center of the clinic is the bag of food she'd brought him and a corked bottle of something that smells like the sewer on a balmy day, but that should keep him from vomiting his dinner before it gets a chance to go down.

"All right," she's talking to herself. "Maker give me the sense to not kill him and, if he doesn't stop with the weirdness, the strength to knock him out so I can just force all this down his throat."

An amused noise originating from the elderly man who's supposed to be sleeping near the front of the clinic urges her to Anders' room...

_Please don't be naked. Please don't be naked,_ Wil tugs the door open and he's _not_ naked, not _completely_, anyway, but it isn't a relief.

_He's _so_ thin._ Muscles cling to his bones, his arms freckled sinew and criss-crossing scars, silvery white against his pale skin. His shoulders are narrow, his ribcage jutting out to frame a flat abdomen which tapers down to slender hips that barely manage to keep his breeches up. Besides the gnarled pink tissue over his heart, he has few scars on his chest and she almost wishes he did because it might distract her from how painfully unhealthy he is.

And he knows it. Even in his addled state, disbelief is plain on his face as he stares at his arms.

"I thought dreamselves were supposed to be more attractive," his fingers run along the scar on his chest, his eyes darkening for a moment as if a memory he's not yet supposed to have has stirred within him.

Wil drops the bag on the bed and begins to rifle through its contents. "You think this is a dream?"

"Of course it is," he smiles falteringly. "_Shithole_, remember? And...you."

"Me?" Wil straightens, alarmed by the way he's moving towards her, all purpose despite the playful pull of his lips.

"_You_," he's got her against the wall, only a few inches separating their chests, and from here he's like a living furnace and she hates that it might not be his fever that's warming _her_. "Why else would a beautiful woman be in a place like this? Unless..."

And his hands are positively aflame when they slip behind her and beneath the hem of her shirt as if he'd memorized the maneuver ages ago to deploy in a situation such as this and then they are against her back, his palms skimming along her skin turns her to liquid, leaving her pliant in his arms so he can draw her hips towards his with no resistance.

Or maybe she pushes towards him on her own, suddenly not entirely capable of thought despite knowing that this should _not_ be happening.

_No_... their stomachs bump against each other, his is damp with sweat that she can actually _feel_ through the front of her tunic and his lips are chapped and _close_, his breath so much hotter than it should be against her cheek. _Absolutely not_.

"Isn't this better than talking?" His eyes, beautiful and bleary and bright with sickness and the illusion that this is actually something awesome, run over her face and come to rest on her mouth.

Despite her instinct, which is pretty much _just go with this_, there is so much wrong with him and with _this_. No matter how wonderful his hands might feel

_so_ wonderful

and no matter how lustfully he stares..._It's a fever and not lust. He is literally burning alive and everything he's feeling is a hallucination and what _you_ feel is fever. And _not_ lust._

"_Anders_," she maneuvers her arms between them so that her hands are flat on his chest and in a good position for her to push if she has to. Not that she couldn't take him easily; she's far stronger and _not_ half starving.

"Hmmm?" His hands slide downward, deliberately following the curve of her back so that his fingers can slip beneath the waist of her breeches and sink into her...hips; his hooded eyes gleam black with desire.

_With fever._

"Do you even know who I am?" Their noses are almost touching.

He _squeezes_ and chuckles, equal parts amused, annoyed and arrogant.

"Besides the girl that's here? What does it matter?"

For some reason, that _stings_. It's not _Anders_, but it...

_Fuck_.

It _is_ Anders. And just…_Anders_.

She squirms, abandoning tact to grab his wrists so that she can pull him off of her and sidestep this potential catastrophe completely. He tries to come after, clearly wondering why he would be thwarted in his own dreams, but only stumbles against the wall and elicits a small, broken, "Oh."

Uncertain what _oh_ is supposed to mean, Wil has focused in on the bath, which is full of what _seems_ to be clean water. There's nothing floating in it, at least.

"Take off your boots, and get in the tub," this is an outright demand.

"But the water will be cold," he pouts, his fingers toying with the laces of his trousers.

"Not cold, just not warm," she squats in front of him and begins to pull at the buckles herself. She'd just throw him into the tub as is, but she knows how much he loves his damn boots.

He leers because if it's a _dream_ and she's practically on her _knees_...

"I can think of one way to warm it up..."

"I'm _not_ going to screw you, Anders," she snaps, one boot yanked off in the process.

He's silent for several seconds, _blissful_ seconds that give her a chance to order her thoughts a bit. Unfortunately, ordered thoughts are almost as unpleasant as chaos, because there is a nagging worry that despite the niceness of his hands, she doesn't care much for the guy in front of her.

"Fine, I'll just enjoy this view while I...," he gasps and she's on her feet again before he can collapse, her arms catching him beneath his armpits and, even at his current level of sickly, he's not a _small_ man and now he's dead weight, too. For a moment, she's afraid he might slip from her grasp, his sweat slick skin sliding beneath her fingers and she's forced to move quickly, backing him the length of his room and dumping him into the tub ass first, splashing water all over herself and the floor in the process.

But his head is above water, and his remaining boot is out of harm's way.

_Anders_ remains unconscious, and looks completely uncomfortable with his head lolling back against the rim of the wash basin. Wil darts out into his clinic to nab a clean blanket from the pile Muriel keeps at the rear, and folds it neatly to tuck between his neck and the edge of the tub. Settling at the head of his cot, which puts her in the perfect position to administer medicine as soon as he's able to swallow on his own, she removes his boot and tosses it with the other.

And then she goes ahead and takes off his socks, as filthy as they are and practically grafted to his feet.

"I missed you," she mutters, as stained fabric comes away and is so much _crispier_ than it has any right to be. "Otherwise, there would be no way _this_ would be happening."

She's surprised it's happening anyway, despite how much she'd missed him. Seeing him without Justice's influence, or what she assumed was him without Justice's influence, was...weird. She'd not thought much about who he'd been before because he didn't speak much of who he'd been before. There'd been hints, of course, and ...

"_You might have a difficult time imagining this, but I have liked a__lot__of someones in my lifetime...__"_

And Maker only knows how little room she has to judge anyone a random and varied sex life, but _names_ were important. Even with her paranoia and unwillingness to let anyone too close, she'd never just fucked someone because they were _there_.

Well, she had. As a matter of fact, Sorrell was probably the only one of her past lovers that she could describe with any accuracy beyond basic physical features and weirdly intimate things like how they tasted, smelled and what sorts of embarrassing noises they made while getting off.

_But what do you know about Anders?_ Not much, if she could be so thrown by a few lame come ons and a unnerving lack of intensity. _Lame come ons...shallow. Who else do we know who fits that description?_

"I hate you, brain," she tilts back until her shoulders are pressed against the stone wall behind her and then goes slack, sinking into his cot so that she's folded with her knees close to her chest. _If _that_ Anders is the real Anders, then how much of Justice is...who _exactly_ am I falling for?_

This momentous and unbidden half-admission flits easily enough across her mind, like any other thought, and _that's_ the scariest part.

"You're a damn fool, Wilhelmina Hawke," she mumbles to her knees. And not even the spirited hammering of her heart against her breast or the way her lips involuntarily tremble on the edge of a spontaneous smile can make it any less true.

* * *

><p>Anders surfaces into consciousness, waking with a silent gasp as his eyes crack open to light, indistinct and painful.<p>

_Everything_ is painful.

His arms are leaden as he attempts and fails to lift them from where they're pressed against his sides. _Stupid arms_. Legs are lost to him completely, although they _also_ hurt like mad they seem _distant_.

Everything is distant.

He's gotten so used to the press of a million things against his skull, but now it's fog and his thoughts, their thoughts, are murmurs and not shouts. Nothing competes for his attention, nothing urges his him to do anything beyond just settle into the tub and...

Suddenly he can see, and suddenly he knows why everything feels disjointed. He's in his bath, up to his shoulders in tepid water. And, for some reason, his pants are still on. With a bit of mystery gone, he summons a spell that eases much of the worst pain and clears his head. He _would_ try to think things through, but his gaze settles instead on the bare feet pressed into the edge of his cot, and the long legs folded up to serve as a makeshift desk for an unwieldy book on dragon cults. Above the top edge of the tome, he can make out Wil's shock of disheveled hair and her dark, expressive brows. With a major force of will he manages to free one hand and decides to get her attention in the messiest way possible, by splashing water on her feet. Justice's unamused

_you'll have to sleep in that wet bed_

coming too late to stay his hand.

It's worth it, though, when the book is discarded for her pack and she, half-grinning , perches herself as close to him as she can get without actually joining him in the tub.

"Willow bark," she extends her hand and he opens his mouth obediently. Although his exhaustion is making even the tiniest movements difficult, Wil playing caregiver is amusing. _And touching._ "Do you really think I'm letting my hands near your teeth? I've seen you eat."

Laughter forms, but remains caught in his throat. Instead he offers a weak smile, "Even I'm not so starved that I'd risk ingesting a finger for _that_."

She hesitates for a second, mock consideration pulling her mouth off center, and then places a pale brown strip of sapling on his tongue. A water flask appears almost magically in her hand as she watches him chew, the combination of the astringent taste and the effort making it a wholly unpleasant task.

"You're burning up," she pulls the stopper from her flask. "What is it you like to tell patients who complain about the taste?"

"My own words used against me," he grinds a bit between his back teeth, the burst of bitter nearly gagging him. "Yes, I'd rather suffer now and be able to remember my name tomorrow."

"As I thought," her eyes remain watchful until he swallows with only a mild grimace. The flask is offered with a flourish, "Water! I mixed some of that stuff that helps settle your stomach in with the water. Otherwise, your dinner will probably come right back up."

She presses the silver bottle to his lips and he drinks eagerly, the liquid quelling discomfort he'd not realized was in. Even the stench of it can't dissuade him from finishing , his eagerness for it _and_ some unsubtle contact bringing his hand out of the water to take the side Wil's not covering. His fingers slip between hers, holding them in place, while he tips the flask further up so that not a single drop is missed.

And then he holds on; the feel of her skin against his, and even in such a minute amount, is a weight lifted. _She came back to me_, his thumb runs along her own and her shoulders twitch in the aftermath of a quick intake of breath. _She's taking care of me, as if I deserve it._

_You're useful to her._

But she's amassed enough help to get by on her expedition, on so many tasks, without him. Her actual need of his services doesn't warrant this level of attention.

_You're still dangerous. _

_Well...yes_. He relinquishes his grip on the bottle and tries to ignore the flicker of relief in her green eyes, or the shadow that falls like a decision being made when he does so.

"I'm sorry dinner isn't more spectacular...I didn't realize you were sick when I took Bethany and Merrill back to the apartment. All I brought was a few slices of soda bread and some lamb and potato stew," she waits for him to readjust in the tub so that he's sitting more upright before she hands him the carved wooden bowl. Threads along the outer rim allow for a second bowl to screw down and create a sealed container. He has no idea how long it's been since Wil packed it, but there's still some warmth to the overcooked chunks of lamb and he can feel strength returning within a few bites.

Wil watches him eat, her expression neutral and her hands clasped tightly at her knees. She's tense...readied for a threat he himself cannot sense.

"Merrill?" He asks around a mouthful of stew. "Is she the elf?"

Her head falling forward, Anders catches the flash of a sardonic smile. "Yes. A gift from the Dalish, I suppose."

"They gave you one of their clan?" He's genuinely shocked. From his experiences with the Dalish which were, admittedly, limited to one woman who probably wasn't a shining example of the race, entrusting a human with one of their own was fairly unheard of. "Why would they do _that_?"

"She asked?" Wil scoots back on the cot. "There has to be more to it, but she didn't want to talk about it on our way back to Kirkwall and she's been too distracted since we got back. And by _distracted_ I mean Beth and I have all but had to tether her to us lest she wander off. She's adorable, but Andraste's ass the girl has no sense of self-preservation."

He remembers Velanna, perpetually peeved and confronting anything and anyone she thought might have wronged her. And that was _everyone_. A lack of self-preservation seemed to run in their blood.

"I knew a Dalish mage, in the Wardens. She was not what I would call adorable," he frowns. "Never would discuss magic with me either...I think she assumed I was just trying to get into her robes. Which...fair."

Wil doesn't respond, although her palms press together in consideration.

"So she's staying with you? I bet your uncle loves _that_."

"Until tomorrow," she comes back. "And Gamlen does love it...creepily enough. Varric found her a place in the alienage and we'll get her settled tomorrow."

The elf was in for quite the disappointment if she thought the alienage would offer anything close to the community she'd shared with her clan. But she'd probably be safer there, regardless. He goes for another spoonful of stew and is disappointed when the wooden utensil scrapes the bare bottom of the bowl.

"So what's next in your efforts to make me better?" He hands her the dirtied dishes and sinks further into the water. It's growing warmer rather than cooling around him and that should be a concern,

"_Sleep_."

Admittedly, sleep sounded like a wonderful idea. But it was also a lonely pursuit, and loneliness is something he wants to delay. He also wants to know a little more about how he came to be curled up in his tub wearing nothing but pants.

"So the last thing I remember is telling a man to not trust every merchant promising to make him the most virile Marcher in Kirkwall...," his stomach twists. It's scary, actually to realize that. Daylight had been streaming through his vents at that point, and it's clearly past nightfall now. Exactly how much time had he lost?

"I think you were, uh, hallucinating," she holds her gaze just off from his own. "You kept treating patients, and none _died_."

"Did Justice take over?" The idea turns him cold. How many people would have seen him like that? How easily could something horrible happen without his ever knowing? Panic creeps into his voice, "Please tell me that nobody saw..."

"No," her hand goes out to calm him, on its way to his face before she withdraws and tucks it between her knees. "I didn't realize anything was wrong until the end of the night and...it had nothing to do with Justice." Her face goes dark, her expression momentarily pained.

It dawns on him then how somber she's being. Besides a moment of amusement when he'd first gained consciousness, her demeanor has been very un-Wil-like. _ What did you do to her?_

"Wil?" Anders tries to straighten, but his fatigue is like a weight on his chest and the more effort he puts into it the further he sinks. "I didn't hurt you, did I?"

_She's been warned. _

Justice is right, but it does nothing to placate the desperate panic that's clawing its way up from his stomach. _Please, I _never_ want to hurt her. _

"No," Wil grins, and it's all a lie, he _knows_ it. "You were just a delirious handful, that's all. You thought you were dreaming."

It _should_ set his mind at ease, but knowing his dreams...

Her smile fades and he can read it in her eyes, _Don't push on this, Anders. Just let it go._

But he doesn't want to let it go, because it's letting her go, too. And he wants to hold on...tightly, _selfishly_.

He shouldn't.

_You were warned. _

"Sleep," he murmurs and she stands to help him, not minding his wet arm slung around her shoulders or his fever dampened cheek pressed against her hair. When he's finally out of the tub, shivering while rivulets of water stream down his chest and drag along his sodden breeches, she wraps him in the blanket she'd had propped behind his head, keeping a careful distance between them and trying not to be too vigorous in her efforts to dry him. "Why are you here?"

"Because you needed me," it's the plain truth, spoken plainly. She nods towards his lower half. "I think pants removal would be best handled by you."

While Wil holds the blanket closed in front, Anders pulls loose the laces of his trousers and shimmies out of the wet garments. It's difficult, the fabric wants to cling to his legs, but he manages without passing out or inadvertently flashing her in the process.

"You're not half bad at this, you know," he catches the inside of the blanket and pulls it tight around him so he can sit down on the edge of his cot, his muscles grateful for the reprieve

"You didn't see me flailing around your clinic earlier and, until you woke up, I was almost convinced that I'd just made things worse," her lips twitch in self-depreciation. "It's only your influence that kept me from tackling you to the ground, force-feeding you medicine, and then knocking you out for a few days."

"_That's_ what I expected from you," chuckling feebly, he watches as she gathers her pack and his book from the bed so he can stretch out. Knowing that she's about to leave again sets his throat to aching in an expression of unacknowledged emotion."I appreciate it, Wil. You've been far better to me than I deserve."

"Says the man who almost killed himself to help people who would gladly lock him up on their _better_ days," a crooked grin lightens the condemnation of her fellow Lowtowners. Slightly. "I'll watch the clinic...if you need anything, just shout or send up a flare or something."

It's nice that she's concerned about his patients. Lovely, in fact. But...

_Stay here with me_, it's on the edge of his tongue and probably clear on his face. _Give me something to remember that isn't fuel for my cause. Give me something to look forward to that's all mine._

_Selfish, Anders. _

Wil averts her gaze from his, and he realizes with sad and sudden clarity what the decision she'd made earlier had been all about.

"Good-night, Anders." _I'm not going to be a pawn in the struggle between what you want and what you're willing to allow. _"If I'm gone before you're up...I'll be back to check on you in a day or two."

She extinguishes his lamps and lets herself out.

Anders stares into darkness, mind forced as blank as he can make it so that their thoughts are just a low murmur at the edges, until exhaustion can claim him.

He dreams that he's one of his own defiant patients and Wil is there to placate him with a story that involves a ridiculous amount of arm flapping and the word _blorple_. After a week of reliving misery and the darkest places he's ever been, it's the most welcome reprieve.

And, if he's being honest with himself, it makes him love her all the more.

* * *

><p><strong>Note from SF:<strong> .

Thanks to Sandtigress and Miri1984 for their gracious fic therapy!

(Also, the first section was stolen from a prompt fill I did. Lazy Surely is lazy!)


	17. A Day in the Life

**Mid-morning**

At some point over the last couple of months, Varric's rooms at the Hanged Man has become like a second home to Wil. Sometimes, she wishes she could consider it her first.

Such as _this_ sort of morning when, after a night spent pretending to read about dragon cults in Anders' clinic, Varric's brand of companionship is what she wants most.

Although he clearly wishes he _could_, he asks no questions when she staggers in and flops onto his unmade bed. He's already dressed, although his duster hangs neatly on his wardrobe instead of his broad shoulders and Bianca is in her display case, conveniently located above the headboard, instead of on his back.

His bed is soft, his pillows plentiful. Were he any other man she'd feel weird wallowing on his still warm sheets, but Varric is _Varric_. He flirts, he smirks, he even occasionally expresses appreciation for a nice pair of human legs, but he's also a _gentleman_.

And one with _fantastic_ taste in bedclothes.

"This is my favorite spot in Kirkwall," she mumbles into his satin coverlet. "I am stealing it once I can afford thieves clever enough to get it past you."

"Or I can just tell you where I got mine, and you could get your own," he leans against the wall and looks down at her, one eyebrow raised.

"Nope, it has to be _this_ bed," she rolls onto her back, staring at the ceiling. "You can always get a new one."

"If you only knew how hard it was to find a carpenter willing to match the headboard to Bianca..."

Wil checks and, indeed, the wood inlay on Bianca goes perfectly with the headboard. "Maker's breath, Tethras. You're a man obsessed."

"What can I say? Maybe one day you'll have a relationship half as meaningful. Then you'll understand."

"Doubtful," reluctantly, she sits up and slides off the bed. "Are we ready to go destroy another bit of Merrill's innocence?"

Slipping into his duster, Varric's expression is thoughtful. "Maybe there will be a street fair or wedding going on today. If not, we talk up the positives and maybe it won't seem so depressing."

"The positives? It's the alienage, I think the only positive is..." she ponders and is still trying to come up with _one_ when they're accosted in the bar.

"Hawke!" Isabela bounces across the room, her chestnut eyes remarkably bright considering the early hour. Wil's continually astounded at how cheap booze can make the woman so _perky_. "And where do you think you're taking my favorite dwarf this morning?"

She seems legitimately interested, which sends up all sorts of flags. Fighting the urge to outright question her curiosity, Wil props herself against the wall. "We're delivering Merrill to her new home in the alienage. You're welcome to join us. You _do_ look like you could use a bit of soul-crushing."

A frown wrinkles Isabela's brow and she appears _almost_ sympathetic.

"I tried to talk her out of that place, but she wouldn't listen," Isabela shrugs, her nonchalant body language at odds with the concern in her voice. "Although maybe it _was_ too soon to...did you know the Dalish take sex _really_ seriously?"

Wil doesn't know whether to laugh or sigh, so she makes a noise that's an awkward combination of _both_.

"I get that a lot," Isabela inclines forward, a suggestive smirk on her lips and her right hip popped so far out that Wil can see a silky swath of the black smalls the pirate wears beneath her tunic. "Wait until I make you laugh and _moan_ at the same time."

Heat prickles along Wil's cheeks, but she simply _cannot_ help herself from saying _something_, "That sounds like it has the makings of another bet. Varric?"

Isabela's mouth sports a wicked grin, the sort that crinkles the corners of her eyes as they dart towards to Varric, who is already signaling his disproval. "I think I've reached my limit on how much I can think about Hawke's sex life. No offense."

"None taken," Wil moves upright and offers Isabela a conciliatory kick against the outside of her boot. "Maybe after I've won Aveline's heart?"

"I'll start writing the love letters. And probably check on Merrill later," Isabela turns on her heel without another word to reclaim her spot at the bar, all swinging hips and ass as she goes.

"Is it just me, or is Isabela sometimes awesome?" Wil pushes through the doors to the Hanged Man and they spill into a sunbathed plaza already bustling with shoppers headed to the bazaar. "And no, this has nothing to do with any _bets_."

"I wouldn't change my wager, even if it did," his hazel eyes gleam with storyteller's secrets, like he knows the ending to her tale even though it's a work in progress. "I'm familiar with how these things go, Hawke. But don't worry, _I_ won't ruin the surprise for you."

**Noonish...**

Merrill doesn't know what to say.

It comes in gasps, her disappointment, her realization that she gave up kin and clan for a hovel on the edge of a ghetto. That she gave up a position of honor and respect amongst her people to become a nameless wanderer in a filthy city that would never care about her.

Even Bethany can't soften the blow as any hope the elf had of stumbling across a prosperous square in this tangle of alleys and tenements begins to fade once the gleam of the harbor becomes visible beyond the breakwater.

"The others are worse than this?" Merrill's pale and expansive brow wrinkles in disbelief. "Is that what you said?"

Bethany frowns, the toe of her boot scratching at the packed dirt that marks the doorstep to Merrill's new home.

"I've just been told that this one is better than most," she's the picture of regret for even bringing it up. "But I don't know how...unless they're all on fire."

_Oh, Bethany._ Wil takes Merrill's elbow, fighting an inadvisable chuckle over her sister's uncharacteristic slip into someplace very _Mina_.

"Did you see the tree?" Wil points her thumb towards the center of the square, which is dominated by a massive and festively painted...tree. It's the one bright spot in this Maker forsaken place and it could only help to point it out as many times as possible.

"I saw it, but..." Merrill begins fretting again. "There are so many people, and none of them...it's all so lonely," her eyes blink shut and don't seem to want to re-open.

"Look at it this way...it's an adventure!" Wil forces a wide smile, holding it in place for several seconds before Merrill's lips twist down and she glances away in embarrassment. "Okay...I was lying. It's not an adventure, but you're also not alone."

"So you'll visit me?" Light re-enters her eyes. "I mean...you don't have to. But it would be nice to have company sometimes. I can cook a little and...rambling."

"Of course I'll visit! But only because you used your 'you kicked my puppy' voice," Wil leans close. "A very effective tool for haggling in the market, by the way."

"Pardon?" Merrill's confused again, but she just blushes and moves on instead of pressing for clarification. "Well, I should get settled in and. Oh, thank you, Mina. You've been so kind to me, and you didn't have to be. I will never forget it."

Her eyebrow fights to pop up in bemusement, but Wil doesn't want to put the poor girl off any more. "This isn't good-bye, Merrill. We'll see each other again soon...I promise. I don't abandon my friends like that."

"_Friends_," her back presses against the rough wood door. "I...I was going to say thank you again and I shouldn't."

She disappears into her new home, swallowed by the darkness within. Just as the door closes behind her, Wil sees a crystalline flare of light from her staff.

"I wish she would have let us go in," Bethany's worried. "It might seem more like home that way."

"You know how headstrong she can be, Beth," swinging around to face her sister, Wil's eyes are jolted wide open by something seen beyond Bethany's shoulders. "Fffffff-_fuck_."

Bethany _knows_ that _fuck_, and she stiffens, her cheeks reddening and sweat beading on her upper lip. She's not forgotten her last encounter with the templars on the docks of the Gallows.

He's a mere five feet away, speaking with a matronly elven woman whose tattooed face mark as Dalish. She pleads, even when he's the one speaking, her eyes full of anguish as the red-haired man explains that he'll only be able to protect her son if he turns himself in.

"If he's _caught_, he'll not be shown mercy," the man's voice is brusque, but Wil hears definite scraps of compassion at its core. "We cannot tolerate apostates."

_Unless they're providing a service that the city is too up its ass to provide itself._

"I'm _trying_ to find him, but..."

Offering a not-unsympathetic nod, the templar turns and makes his way out of the square. Bethany relaxes and slides her eyes to the left, "We _have_ to help her, Mina. That could be mother!"

Indeed, it could be. Not that it's in her to walk away from a woman in need, especially one who is so openly grateful for the assistance, and surprised that anyone besides herself would care what might become of her troubled apostate son.

"He has terrible nightmares, of demons who call for him," concern clouds her eyes. "I don't want to lose him to the Circle," she chokes. "Without my clan, Feynriel is all I have. But it would be worse to lose him to the Fade."

Wil wants to pat the woman, Arianni, on the head in consolation. She's torn by what is clearly her own worse nightmare: a son she's been protecting her entire life who possesses a power she can't understand or help him control, and now he's lost somewhere in _Kirkwall_.

"Is there anyone he might have gone to? For help or protection," Wil keeps her voice low and devoid of anything but compassion. She's experienced enough in the field of apostate safety to know that the only way Arianni will speak openly is if she appears as trustworthy as humanly possible.

"Hi-his...," her eyes won't meet Wil's. "His father and I have not been together since I found I was with child. However Vincento is in Kirkwall, a merchant in the bazaar. He sells Antivan imports...I know that Feynriel wanted to meet him." This comes out with a whiff of acrimony. "And Ser Thrask is working to see him brought safely in. Those are the only two that I know of."

Wil nods, considering the options. She thinks she knows the merchant Vincento. Or rather she knows his sleazy come-ons and wandering eyes. He'd always seemed a harmless letch, but knowing he'd abandoned the mother of his unborn child isn't exactly earning him her approval.

"I'll do whatever I takes," she speaks suddenly, realizing that the elven woman is watching her with fearful eyes. "I'll find Feynriel as quickly as I can, and perhaps..."

_perhaps there is another way._ Wil swallows. She wants there to be, for Arianni's sake. But she also knows the dangers of false hope. She's going to focus on the finding, and worry about the Circle and the boy's nightmares once she knows he's safe.

"Bless you, stranger," the elf bows her head in reverence Wil knows she doesn't deserve."I never thought there would be anyone who'd understand, not least of all a human."

**Mid-afternoon...thanks to Wil's bad sense of direction...**

"Ah, my lovelies. I remember you," the merchant smiles suggestively at Wil, his hands going to a wooden rack of silk scarves that flutter in the faint breeze winding through Lowtown. Without looking, he selects one of the brightly colored squares of fabric and presents it to her with a flourish. "This was practically made for you...and your exquisite eyes."

Wil bites back on a wave of revulsion _and_ her tongue. The last thing she needs to do is insult Vincento uncooperative. No matter how badly her _exquisite eyes_ want to roll upward, she must fight it. No matter what she wants to say, she must smile instead.

"While lovely, I'm more interested in information you might have?" She plucks the scarf from his fingers and returns it to the rack...or the vicinity of the rack. She's not the _tidiest_ person. "I'm looking for your son."

Vincento laughs, a slightly strangled noise that is further betrayed by the panic in his eyes, and attempts to woo his way from beneath her glare. "Why my dear, I am no father."

"I never said you were," she winces once it's out. So much for not _insulting_ him. "But there's a boy who seems to think so, and I need to find him."

Vincento's eyes narrow but not before Wil can catch genuine concern flicker within them, "I do not know of whom you speak. Now leave me before I summon the guard."

"Ooooh," Varric can't help himself, and offers a rude gesture behind her back. He shouldn't be so quick to dismiss the threat...even if they wouldn't be thrown into jail or fined, getting taken in would mean more lectures from Aveline. _Justified_ lectures, even.

Once again, it's Bethany to the rescue.

"We have no intentions of harming your son, sir," she makes it sound so...genuine.

Still, the man rejects the notion that he even _has_ a son, let alone one that he knows and wants to _protect_, and begins scanning the bazaar for the closest lawman.

"Fuck," Bethany mutters, forcing Wil to hide amusement behind her bit lip. After a quick glance around to ensure there are no templars nearby, Bethany strides towards Vincento, her jaw tight and her posture resolute. Before he can cry out, or deny, or even _think_ about responding, she snaps her hands open, her palms glowing hazy violet with spirit magic.

It's only long enough for him to see and react, his eyes widening and hope tugging at the corners of his mouth. Bethany pulls her hands back in, the purple light gone as quickly as it had appeared, although Wil can smell it lingering on the air, the scent of Bethany's magic like summer grass and sunshine. With Vincento appearing for all the world like a man ready to talk, she ambles back to her place beside Wil, her expression unmistakably proud.

Wil imagines that her own is very similar.

_Nice work, Beth._

"I had no...," the merchant shuffles back until his shoulders are touching the wall behind his booth. "In this city...it is so hard to know who to trust. The templars are everywhere, and there is so much fear."

Emboldened, Bethany responds, "Don't worry, sir. A mage won't find a better friend in all of Kirkwall." She smiles at her sister and Wil's pretty certain she hears Varric gag behind her.

"Feynriel came to me and told me what was happening," his voice is hushed. "I know a templar named Samson who helps young mages avoid the Gallows, so I sent Feynriel to speak with him."

There are about a million things wrong with that sentence, and Wil needs a few seconds to figure out where to start.

"A templar who helps...surely you wouldn't trust him with your son?" _Maker _please_ tell me you didn't trust him with your son._

"I knew him before I was even aware of Feynriel's...condition," like magic is a bad scalp, or chronic wheezes. "He is no longer a templar, he could not stand what they asked of him. Now he helps them...to atone."

"Sounds almost too good to be true," she frowns. "But it's a lead. Where can I find Ser Samson?"

Vincento snorts at the honorary, but gives her the information anyway. "He is always down by the docks at night...but do not tell him I sent you. He still has connections in the order, and that is a mess I do not need."

Wil wants to laugh and remind him that she's the last person who would piss off the templars, but then she remembers her conversations with Cullen, the way she'd argued and then challenged him on his own grounds.

"Noted," she nods at Bethany and Varric and they turn away in unison. Vincento has proven himself to be somewhat more decent than Wil had anticipated, but he's done nothing to warrant her reassurance.

**Nightfall...**

"There _are_ treatments for lyrium addiction, you know," Anders' staff thumps against the stone step in front of him and he uses it to pull himself up. He's too weak to be out, much less in full blown anti-templar rant mode, but Samson has proven to be something of an inspiration on that front. Wil had hoped the former templar would actually turn out to be a decent chap, and perhaps he was at his core. On the surface, however, he'd been every inch the opportunist, and an addict at that. "Maybe if he wasn't driven by his need for the stuff, he'd be able to do the good he _thinks_ he's doing now."

Fenris leaps up the stairs ahead of them with his strange, light gait that's at odds with his perpetually stooped shoulders. Pausing, he glares down at Anders, "Because _good_ is allowing these untrained mages loose on the world. You _would_ think so."

"It's better than the alternative." _Thunk._ _Pull_. "They wouldn't be running _or_ untrained if the Circle wasn't an infringement on their freedom."

"Take your argument to those who have been killed or lost to these child apostates," Fenris seethes it. "They come to Tevinter in droves, looking for acceptance, and are either enslaved or turned away to plague the border settlements when they turn to blood magic for survival."

_Thunk_. _Pull_. _Thunk._ _Pull_. "I don't condone the use of blood magic, but if the Chantry would only make it so that mages didn't have to choose between educated but imprisoned and untrained but free, they wouldn't be desperate enough to-"

Fenris cuts him off, and in the dark of the alley stairwell Wil can see his markings glowing faint but steady against his skin. "You are naive if you think blood magic is merely a last resort for the desperate, even outside of Tevinter. Hawke's new friend wasn't being hunted when _she_ turned to blood magic."

_Balls_. Anders turns on her so quickly he almost falls back.

He's angry.

"What new friend?"

_Dammit, Fenris._ The elf sneers down at her, although she imagines he's probably quite pleased to see that she and Anders can disagree on _some_ things.

"Merrill," she scrunches her face and looks away. Varric is beside her and clearly wishing he'd not ditched out on his Merchant's Guild meeting to be here. "She has..._exhibited_ signs of being a blood mage."

"Merrill?" His forehead wrinkles in confusion. "The Dalish...she's a _mage_?"

"An admitted _blood mage_," Fenris isn't about to let Wil dance around this one. _Jerk_. "As if the elves in the alienage don't have enough to worry about...Aveline has already doubled the guard, and is posting one of them by the vhenadahl for protection."

"For _Merrill's_," Wil snaps. "We talked about it after she wandered off in the middle of the night and we found her by the qunari compound. It's _temporary_.

"If you say so, Hawke," he's obviously going to believe the worst.

"I trust her intentions," they're close enough to their goal that Wil just pushes past mage and elf to make it to the top of the stairs. "Same as I trust yours."

She addresses Fenris _and_ Anders. The latter appears too tired for further argument, although Maker knows that hasn't always stopped him before. Both remain silent, however, even as their expressions make it clear there is more to say on the topic.

With a sigh, she shoves through the rusted over doors that lead into the warehouse.

_There is _always_ more to say on the topic._

**Nightfall plus some time spent demon slaying...**

"This is what happens to desperate apostates," Anders is kneeling alongside the slender corpse of a pale young woman. Expression both bereft and furious, he's pulled off a handmade cowl to reveal a thick mass of flame-coloured curls that spill across the rough wooden floor where she's fallen. Her face is gaunt and, from the fresh and fading bruises that form ladders up both bony legs and along her neck, Wil gets the distinct impression that she'd been in hiding for a while and had turned to prostitution to survive.

"The Circle would have fed her, kept her from becoming a demon," Fenris tears the tunic from a slaver rogue's still warm corpse and uses it to wipe the blood from his blade, his movements indolent despite the vast amounts of personal satisfaction it must bring him. "She would have been safe-"

"You don't know what you're talking about," the mage, his voice shaking with rage and memory, cannot bring himself to look at the elf. "I was denied meals as an apprentice if they didn't like where I was sitting, I was beaten for speaking out of turn or walking too fast or too slowly through the hallways. Others were raped...and nobody believes a mage over a templar."

"So yes, better being a whore. Clearly the smart choice."

"THAT SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN HER ONLY OPTION!" Justice rises, glowering at Fenris through black smoke and blue lamp eyes. "SHE DESERVED MORE THAN STARVATION OR IMPRISONMENT! DEATH OR SLAVERY!"

The warrior stiffens, his shoulders raising and his gauntleted hand tightening on the grip of his claymore. It's hard to tell when he's against Juctice, but Wil thinks she detects the lines on his skin begin to brighten like a map to his rage and

"Oh, for fuck's sake," she goes between them, not caring that Justice seethes at her, too, or that Fenris' expression is feral with hatred. "This is _not_ the time for this discussion...we couldn't save the girl, but if we can find something in here that might lead us to Feynriel..."

Justice dissipates and Anders sags in his place, face pale and dark eyes worried beneath a sweat slick brow.

"Wil, don't ever do that again," he begins, gasping for air. "If Justice had attacked-"

Fenris interrupts him with a snort, his eyes still dangerous but gleaming with self-satisfaction. "He would have killed you to get to me, for doing nothing more than disagreeing."

"That's not-" Anders' expression is one of horror, but he's interrupted by a visibly annoyed Varric.

"As I'm the only one not fighting or refereeing," it's clear from his voice he thinks not much more of Wil for her latter role. "I actually found something useful. And depressing."

A blood-splattered letter hangs is caught between two fingertips and Wil plucks it away to see that he's not lying on either front.

"We need to get to Darktown, now," her eyes burn with sympathy. "After this is done, we'll need to tell Ser Thrask what became of his daughter."

_Poor sod._ Wil cannot conceive of the guilt the templar will feel when she gives him his daughter's letter, _if_ she gives him the letter. For the moment, she's uncertain if it would be the kind or the cruel thing to do.

Even more uncertain is her motive...does she wish to punish him for staying loyal to the order despite the nature of his own offspring? Or can she recast him as a man who thinks himself able to do more to help mages from within the order? She tries to recapture the timbre in his voice as he spoke to Arianni, but Fenris and Anders are starting to argue again...Anders wants to burn the mage girl _Olivia_, but Fenris would rather leave her to rot so he can get a head start on killing slavers.

_Why is he still here, anyway?_ Fenris' lip curls in contempt as Anders compromises by merely covering the body. _And why do I put up with him?_

**After midnight...**

Fenris has his hand inside a man's chest.

Not just a man, but a slaver mage asshole who had the audacity to intimate that Wil's smart's mouth wouldn't save her or win her any favor.

This_ is why I put up with him._

He yanks his hand away and crimson coats his gauntlet, viscera clinging to the claw-sharp talons. As he turns back to Wil, his eyes gleaming and his lips curled in satisfaction, she's given another reason altogether. _Damn my smirk fetish. I should be so creeped out right now._

They fight their fight with the slavers, a happy inevitability that ends with Wil and Fenris splattered in blood and looting corpses for clues, Varric nursing Bianca and Anders sprawled out on a set of splintered wooden steps trying desperately to summon enough energy to stand. He'd begged her to come along, over her protestations that he would be pushing himself to hard and too fast. It's admirable, his commitment to finding Feynriel unshakeable even if it means burning through lyrium potions and hobbling along like a crone with bad bones, but Wil feels like the worst person in the world for allowing it in his condition.

"Where to next?" Varric keeps his eyes on the crossbow, his mouth twisted in concern over a scratch on one of her arms.

"According to the map I just found?" She waves it for emphasis. "The Wounded Coast."

Anders moans.

"Oh, it could be worse," her hands go out for him to grab onto and she pulls him up almost entirely on her own. "At least it's not the Injured Cliffs...or the Limping Hills."

He winces but allows her to shrug herself beneath his armpit so that she can help him up the stairs.

"Although I _have_ heard Massive-Head-Trauma Bay is quite lovely this time of year."

Anders groans, probably in physical pain. She pretends otherwise.

"What? You don't like it? Then I guess we'll take our honeymoon someplace else," she pauses and tries not to think about how frail he feels against her side. "Bloody Springs, perhaps. _They_ have a cheese festival."

**Senselessly late...**

So what _are_ the chances of meeting a dwarf hanging out in a torch-lit clearing on the Wounded Coast at this time of night?

The dwarf's eyes narrow in consideration. Clearly, he's thinking something similar, only about mis-matched bands of rescuers who appear from the darkness to slay an attacking horde of gigantic spiders while his own faceless wall of masked bodyguards cower behind him.

"Not every day, or night, or _morning_ that a man sees something like that," the dwarf remarks with interest. "A skilled enthusiast...you certainly put these jerks to shame."

With an arrogant toss of his head to indicate his hired men, Wil gets a pretty clear picture of why they might not want to rush to his aid.

"_Skilled_ _enthusiast?_ What, did I look like I was _dancing_ with those spiders or something?" Her eyebrow arches high in amusement, despite the fact that Anders is leaning heavily against her, what little strength he'd had left after their trek up the coast almost gone after helping in the fight. If she didn't force some joviality into this whole affair, it might be unbearable.

"No, just the fact that you went after them at all," his voice is unpleasantly shrewd and he's flattering her too much. If she's learned anything in her time in Kirkwall, it's that flattery usually comes with a proposition.

And not the good kind. _Usually_ not. But Isabela could hardly be taken seriously at this point.

"It's late, and we're tired," she uses her eyes to indicate Anders. "Just tell me who you are and what you want."

"To the point," he fingers the tufts of honey blond hair that cling to his jaw. "Name's Javaris Tintop, and I'm at an impasse with some qunari."

From her elbow, Fenris snorts. "The qunari _are_ known for such."

"Those horn-heads in Kirkwall have a powder that just...explodes," his hands fly up as if Wil's not quite smart enough to know what _explodes_ means. "And that say it's _dust_. No lyrium, demons, or magic...and anyone can use it."

"And nobody _should_," Anders murmurs against her shoulder. "Unless they're going to war."

"It sounds enough like magic," she begins to rhythmically kick her feet against the ground to stave off fatigue in her legs. "And if it is..._dwarf_. Could you even use it?"

This _annoys_ him. "I just said it _doesn't involve magic_ and, if it does, it's still something that can be assembled," he sneers. "And..._dwarf_."

"He's got a point there, Hawke. If there's one thing dwarves are good at, it's cutthroat politics. If there's another...it's putting stuff together," Varric chuckles. "Or if you're the right caste, paying someone to put it together for you. And probably not as much as they deserve."

"Well, that sodding Arishok won't sell the knowledge...accused me of being a mercenary just like their Tal'Vashoth," Tintop rolls his eyes. _You know, _those_ guys_. "He said I wasn't worthy, but I saw it. He had that look in his eye that told me he was open to being impressed..."

_Oh, well if there was a _look_ in his eye. _

"Let me guess how you think things are going to play out- you kill the Tal'Vashoth, or rather you get them killed," Wil gestures to the men behind him. "You present their heads to the Arishok, he deems you worthy of his boom powder, and everyone walks away richer in gold and/or the ability to maim more efficiently."

Tintop's not amused. For a few seconds he stares at her with hooded and unreadable eyes that flit between her face and the curling corpses of the slain spiders just beyond his camp. Apparently, the benefits of her ability to kill outweighs the annoyance of her smart mouth. Which…she almost wishes it didn't. "Listen, I know I'm no warrior...and apparently neither are my men."

Wil doesn't know if it's exhaustion kicking in, but she's pretty impressed that Tintop has yet to be shanked.

"I have no doubt your men can handle themselves fine...it might just be that spiders and qunari aren't what they signed on to fight," she laughs. "Even _I'd_ turn down _that_ recruitment flyer."

"No you wouldn't," Fenris sounds _almost_ cheeky. "You're one price negotiation away from doing it _right now_."

Anders stiffens against her, either annoyed at what the elf's implying or the familiar way he implies it.

"I'd be careful about this if I were you," Varric knows more about the Arishok's dealings in Kirkwall than any of them, but his concern seems to simply be for their hides. "Qunari are tougher than your average bandit or carta thug."

"True...but on the other hand...they're not exactly well-armored, are they? Surely between the lot of us we can handle them," she cuts back to Tintop. "Granted you're willing to pay us what we deserve, and not double-cross me should the look you saw in the Arishok's eyes turn out to be indigestion and _not_ a need to be impressed."

This tentative agreement curls the dwarf's lips into a cruelly victorious grin and Wil's suddenly tempted to withdraw her offer, to wander off and let someone else fall into this trap. The first time she'd ever seen a qunari, standing tall and stone-faced by the docks and never acknowledging humanity as it teemed around him besides to exhale a deeply held breath of disproval, she'd made a promise to herself, half-joking but well intentioned, to never fuck with them. They're huge, for one thing, and almost impossible to read. Bethany had told her stories of the qunari caged in Lothering for his dispassionate killing of the Clearys, including their two sons who were handsome and young and-

"-a camp up the Wounded Coast, and you can meet me at their compound in Kirkwall when it's done, all right?" Tintop stares and Wil nods in silent consent. "Okay then. Now excuse me while I go hide from those spiders...I think I saw one of them twitch."

**Impossible to tell...**

"One more step and the boy dies."

It echoes across the cavern and Wil is too tired to do anything more than comply, squinting up at the portly slaver and the lithe young man whom he held at sword-point.

_Feynriel I presume_. Sorrell has explained to her that the offspring of a human and an elf is always human, but she still can't help but search for Arianni in the young man's delicate features. It's hard to see anything recognizable, but that probably has more to do with his expression of pantswetting fear which, he _is_ being held at sword-point. Nobody is at their best under _those_ conditions.

_So help him out, Wil._ She narrows her eyes in consideration and then twists the corner of her mouth downward. She's not mentally nimble enough in these sorts of situations, when her legs are twitching in anticipation of the next flanking maneuver and her fingers ache for the solid anchor of her blade. But Varric...Varric is never better than he is at a time like this.

Settling her shoulders back and assuming what she considers to be something of a self-important sneer, she commands Varric, "Tell this dirtbag who we are before he gets himself into even more trouble."

He doesn't even hesitate and Wil cannot help but be impressed as he takes one authoritative stride forward and launches into a detail-perfect lies

"If I were you, I wouldn't be threatening the _Viscount's son_."

"What," the slaver intones. Not a question, not an explanation. Just an exhalation that said several things but mostly _of course_.

"Oh," Varric _knows_."I suppose you got a tip saying that a slaver was peddling mage flesh cheap. And you didn't think to ask where he got it?" Never has an implied _you fool_ came across with such congeniality. "You never wondered if you were buying the Viscount's well-known love child from his elven mistress, the boy he swore to protect even if it means razing the entire Free Marches?"

This time Varric's silent condemnation is not softened, and the slaver has the good manners to look faintly embarrassed at the political faux pas he's in the process of making.

"Note that he doesn't care about the fact that he bought a child," she murmurs as an aside to Varric. "Just that someone might make a frowny face over this _particular_ child."

"Hnnnn...I seek no war with the Free Marches," the sword remains at Feynriel's pale throat but it's wavering as the man seeks his way out of this mess. "Take the lad to his father."

"Oh, such a gentleman...I wasn't expecting it. You Tevinters have terrible reputations, you know," Wil smirks. "For some reason."

The man lowers his blade and tosses a bag of coins down to Wil.

"This was the price set on the boy, please accept it as an offer of peace and let me go free."

It's heavy in her hands, the small sack of gold. It represents a compromise...a peaceful resolution that could have ended in blood and a few less slavers in the world and that could only be a good thing. But she's exhausted. Securing Feynriel, who's trudging hesitantly down the stairs towards them while his captors flee through the back of the cavern, means that whatever urge has been driving her since yesterday morning is now sated, leaving her heavy-limbed and foggy. With Anders all but crawling along behind them, she's uncertain they could win _any_ confrontation.

It's Feynriel coming to a halt several feet away from her, suspicion plain on his face, that snaps her out of her temporary ethical morass.

"Who _are_ you?" His eyes dart, searching the shadows behind them. "Did the templars send you?"

_Sure. Because the templars are in the habit of sending elves, dwarves and mages out to collect their apostates._

"Your _mother_ sent us," Wil keeps her tone neutral.

"Huh," he sneers with the petulant surety of youth betrayed. "Hardly a difference."

"Really? Because I could probably list several."

The young man frowns. "My whole life she's claimed to love me, to want to protect me. Then I have a few bad dreams and she doesn't _hesitate_ to call the templars."

"It's because she doesn't want to-" Wil's hand flies to her forehead, her fingers pressing against her temple. _You're not here to mediate, Wil._ "I want to help you, Feynriel."

He scoffs, but his expression becomes marginally less insolent. "Why? I'm an apostate, and you don't even _know_ me."

"Not everyone fears mages" she shrugs. "Some of us even love them."

It's not until the boy's gaze goes to the men standing beyond her that she realizes how _that_ admission might sound to _certain_ parties.

_Andraste's ass_. "My _sister_ is an apostate," Wil keeps it casual, pretending that sees doubt in his face and not the dawn of understanding. "As was my father."

"Oh," he's thoughtful for several seconds, lips pursed and hands twisting at his stomach. "Do you think you could get me to the Dalish? That's where I was heading...before."

"The _Dalish_?" She can't hide her surprise. "You'd be alone among the Dalish, moreso than a Dalish would be in Kirkwall."

"Tell me then, what are my other options in Kirkwall? Imprisoned? Made tranquil?" He's indignant again and showing signs of panic. "I'll _risk_ being lonely."

"Anders," she peers over her shoulder and can see him clinging to his staff, which is pressed into the rocky cavern floor like an anchor. Despite the fact that he can't be more than a quarter alive, his eyes are bright with interest. "Do you think the Dalish could help him? I know nothing of their magic..."

The mage nods, dimly enthusiastic about the idea. Under normal circumstances, he'd probably be cheering Feynriel up Sundermount. "The Dalish have a deeper understanding of the Fade and a greater tolerance of mages in general. And the Keeper might be able to teach him how to control his dreams, while the Circle would probably Tranquil him...I've known mages who were put through the ritual for less."

"Listen," Feynriel pleads. "I know it's different in other kingdoms...but in Kirkwall, nobody cares about Circle mages. I don't want to be branded by the templars, I want to _learn_. The Dalish have had magic forever; they _could_ teach me. And I won't be a danger-"

"Said with the certainty of a naive youth," Fenris growls.

"-I _swear_ it," the boy finishes, ignoring the elf.

Wil pictures Arianni, desperate for her son's safety even if it meant losing him to the Circle. The woman had seemed convinced that the Circle would help him control his power, but Anders knows more about the reality of the Circle than either of them. _Besides, couldn't she join the Dalish, too? Merrill had mentioned that the Dalish were willing to accept city-raised elves into their clan...oh, why not? What's the worst that can happen?_

"You deserve your freedom-"

"Said with the certainty of a naive youth."

-and I cannot stand in your way," she finishes, ignoring the elf. "Keeper Marethari didn't seem the sort to turn aside a person in need. So if this is what you want..."

"_Yes_," Feynriel leaps forward, his face blossoming into a smile so sweetly bright that Wil can very clearly see, even as exhaustion's fog further impedes her ability to _reason_, why Arianni would risk so much to protect him. "Thank you. I could not, in my wildest dreams, have foreseen this...I thank the Creators that Mother found you. There's nothing I can do to repay you."

"You could keep your end of the bargain," Wil returns his smile, although she's fairly certain that hers is less ecstatic and more _creepy_. "Learn, be careful. Don't give Mr. Sunshine behind me a reason to be able to say _I told you so_."

"I will, I will...I won't," he laughs and it's so ridiculously ebullient that it stirs something within her. Past all the sleepy, the fighting, and the sadness of parents and the children they're forced to hide or imprison for their own safety, is a boy who's just been handed something unfathomably precious. "I'll be...I'll be on my way. I have a pack and I was told there'd be a scouting group not far up the coast later today."

He skips back up the stairs and then disappears down a different passage than the slavers had taken. In Kirkwall, she'll send a message ahead to Marethari. If Feynriel encounters any resistance with the clan, her explanation might make _some_ difference.

"Let's drag our carcasses home now," she mutters. Allowing Varric and Fenris to lead, she trails Anders. Every step he takes is more of a _lurch_ and his discrete attempts to cast spells to replenish his stamina are obviously not doing anything to help stave off what must be a crushing amount of fatigue.

They make it to the cavern entrance, the sun's light already unfurling over the horizon, and the small push out of the mouth of the cave is too much for the mage as he staggers into the stone and just stays there, propped up and unmoving.

_I didn't ask you to come, you crazy thing. _Wil waves Varric forward. Without even her telling him, he knows what she wants.

The potion he hands her is viscous, chunks of fetid Deep Mushrooms float in a murky grey sludge of root extract and raw honey "for taste". The sympathy in his hazel eyes is not lost on her as she throws it back with a steady hand, swallowing as quickly as she can to diminish the amount of time it has to linger on her tongue and ruin _everything_ with its taste.

"Maker, it's making out with a rotten egg," she clamps her jaws to avoid the temptation to retch it back up, as that can't possibly be any better. "A rotten egg stuffed with _filth_."

"And bad mushrooms," Varric helps her with her sheath harness. "Hey, Elf. Do you think you can take this for Hawke? I would, but Bianca _hates_ to share."

Fenris glares at Anders but accepts the offered sword in silence. He may despise the mage, and probably Wil, too, but the idea of having to make camp in a slaver hide-out is equally repellant.

Freed from all other obligations, Wil fetches Anders' staff from where it's fallen to the sandy ground just beyond him and carefully buckles it into place across his back. It's affixed at an angle; their path along the coast is more than wide enough and she doesn't want it to catch on the uneven terrain. Her footing will be tricky enough with his added weight, the last thing she needs is a snag to send them toppling

"What do you think you're doing, Wil?" As if he doesn't know. He sighs when he sees the look in her eyes. "Don't tell me you plan on carrying me all the way back to Kirkwall."

"Okay!" She turns away from him. Already beginning to feel the effects of Varric's potion, she's able to hold steady when he tentatively winds his arms around her shoulders and then supports his weight with a practiced lean forward so he can lift his legs one at a time to brace against her waist.

He's heavier than Bethany, the one she's used to carrying like this, but not by much. His limbs are longer, which means he's pressed uncomfortably at the base of her back rather than the small, but she's already told herself she's going to pretend like that part of her doesn't exist until he's safely in a bed in Kirkwall.

Other things that don't exist: her shoulders which are engulfed in his thin arms, her neck which is being tickled by the feathers from his pauldrons, and a place just in front of her ear where his breath is warm against her skin and the sound of it distractingly, and maddeningly, intimate. _So my brain doesn't exist. I am just a muscular shell of a human for the next couple of hours._

"You can leave me behind if you want," he whispers after the first few steps which are, admittedly, less than smoothly executed. "You don't have to kill yourself to get me home."

And she doesn't respond for a few minutes because when he talks his lips seem close and..._why are you thinking about his lips? They don't exist. He's a creepy, lipless, eyeless, noseless...rosy-cheeksless shell of a human. _

His thighs tighten against her waist so he doesn't slip as she navigates an abnormally steep incline.

"Just a shell," she mutters.

"Hmm?" It vibrates from his chest and into her.

Varric glances back, his gaze meeting her own, and his expression is no less sympathetic than it had been when she'd tossed back the stamina draught.

**Well past sunrise...and back at the Hanged Man**

"You're _stubborn_, Wil," Anders is on his feet again, but barely. Wil removes his pauldrons and jacket while Varric makes a few half-hearted attempts to straighten his bedclothes out. "I could have made it up here on my own."

"You would have been asleep in a puddle of vomit two steps inside the door, Blondie," Varric nods and Wil lowers Anders to the bed, instinctively tugging his tunic so that it doesn't get twisted beneath him or wadded up. He notices, his hands lethargically chasing her own and his mouth curving in an exhausted and appreciative smile before sleep claims him again.

"I don't think I have ever been this happy to be home," Wil winces and takes a seat on the edge of Varric's bed, her back aching from the miles covered with her man-sized cargo. "Is it weird that I think of this as home?"

"Depends," Varric shrugs out of his duster and goes to the cherry-wood wardrobe tucked in an alcove by his bed. Wil can see a neat row of white silk shirts hanging above four identical pairs of leather boots. "What do you think of as home? Kirkwall, Lowtown? The Hanged Man? My room?"

The stop after _room_ is strangely abrupt.

"Here, I think." The bed calls for her and she collapses into its embrace, careful to hold her limbs close so she doesn't accidentally brush against Anders. "It's strange, I never thought I'd like anything about Kirkwall."

Varric changes where she can't see him.

"That was before you met me," he appears in the corner of her vision, improbably immaculate and looking no worse for the wear after their arduous night. "Before, you were just a nameless refugee trying to survive in a city that never wanted you. But now..."

His duster is back on and his fingers brush at his lapels.

"Yes?" She's interested in what she is _now_, because she still feels very much like a nameless, albeit fortunate, refugee.

"You're the protagonist, Hawke, the irreverent heroine with the heart of...copper, at the very least," he leans against his footboard, smiling down at her with clear affection. "Killer of bandits, protector of mages, annoyer of broody elves and really, really _bad_ at gambling."

"And you won't tell me how it ends?" Wil attempts to sit up and is held at bay by one gloved hand.

"I have intuition, but it's not an exact science...and I'd hate to unduly influence the outcome," he moves to leave, possibly to visit his brother at the Merchant's Guild or to meet with one of his many contacts throughout Kirkwall. He has an entire life outside of the work that _they_ do together...

"Why me?" Propping herself up on one elbow, she regards him through exhaustion blurred eyes. "You have to know hundreds of people, and I can't imagine I'm the most interesting."

His response is unhesitating, like his lie in the cave. _Hawke_, he'd told her once after convincing Athenril that cargo entrusted to a young Fereldan urchin had been stolen and _not_ given to said urchin by a sympathetic Wil, _Hawke_, he'd said. _There are many skills that I possess, but of them all...romance at short notice is my specialty. _

And yet she's never felt lied to, not least of all now when he picks up the edge of the coverlet so she can settle in a bit more comfortably, and lays it out:

"I know hundreds of people, and none of them would ever ask me that. Yet here you are, the one with the daylong adventure sprees all over Kirkwall and a date with the Arishok," he snorts. "And never mind how much fun it's going to be telling people how far you carried _Blondie_. Although I may have to get creative with the poses."

She laughs into his bed as he leaves and holds herself close. Everything is soft beneath her, the satin cool against her skin and the world muffled beyond thick walls. Lying there, sleep a physical thing that stalks her mind and closes it down in heartbeats, it's easy to see the day as a string of victories because one particular thing had turned out so well.

But nothing is perfect. That afternoon a father will lose his daughter, and a mother will learn of the choice her son made to leave her. Merrill will show up at the Hanged Man in search of company and end up playing cards with Isabela, her mossy eyes rimmed in red and her mind even further away than normal.

Bethany will have further reports of another fight between Mother and Gamlen and _we cannot get out of here soon enough_.

Now, however, Wil allows herself enjoy the moment for what it is: comfort, familiarity and a near perfect silence punctuated only by Anders' deep and rhythmic breathing.

* * *

><p><strong>Note from SF:<strong>I forgot to attribute a shamelessly stolen quote that sums up Mr. Tethras so perfectly.

So credit to Saki, whom I've decided would probably have been a favorite author of Circle!Anders, what with his themes of clever young men and women besting their oppressive elders. Also, he wrote a story about a talking cat.


	18. Politics

"You're here early, Hawke," Aveline barely raises her eyes from the disarray of parchment, ledgers and schematics that blankets her desk. The woman is a warrior, a soldier to her core. Paperwork is not the reason she wanted to become Captain and on days like today, when she's drowning in reports, requests, proposals, applications, patrol logs and evidence statements, there's nothing she wishes she could do more than chuck the entire lot into the barracks fireplace and run off with Hawke to go hit bandits with swords for fun and profit. "Here, why don't you read Seneschal Bran's five-part proposal toredraw the districts in Kirkwall in order to even out tax distributions."

Settled in her favored chair, Hawke lifts her chin in a fake show of interest.

"When does he even have time to draft those things? From the way you talk, he's always _here_."

This gets Aveline's nose out of her work, a rare amount of mischief loosening her tongue.

"From what I've heard, he keeps a second office at the Blooming Rose," she lowers her voice, fighting against the urge to smile in response to Hawke's own open-mouthed sign of approval for _this_ Aveline. "Maybe one of the whores is a political genius."

"I'm sure Varric would know, but he's oddly recalcitrant when it comes to sharing information with people we know," her eyes roll upward in feigned innocence. "Not that I've tried to get it out of him or anything."

"Of course not," Aveline snorts. It's surprisingly nice to be able to relax for a few minutes. She's been running since Sundermount and, between training, meetings, inspections, patrols and trying to get enough sleep to keep it up, she's had precious little time for anything but work. "So what brings you to Hightown this morning, Hawke? You're not in trouble again."

"Not yet...but I might be heading in that direction," it's admirably forthright, something at which Hawke doesn't always excel, and Aveline sets aside her paperwork so that she can give her friend as much of her attention as she can.

"You know the rules...as long as we're here, edit out the illegal parts."

"I've gotten pretty good at censoring myself, you know. If you asked Mother, she'd probably tell you that Bethany and I are professional trash-collectors and believe every word," guilt darkens her features for the briefest of moments. Aveline is sympathetic, and even more so when guilt is dismissed by a tightening of Hawke's jaw, and a slight narrowing of green eyes. Leandra Hawke is a kind woman, but Aveline can see the pressure she places upon her eldest child to simply make things work. It's not entirely fair, but taking the pressure is pretty much what Hawke does.

Aveline gets that, too.

"What do you know about the Tal'Vashoth?" Hawke pronounces the foreign term with practiced fluidity. "I know you've had encounters with them...we followed a patrol route back down the coast yesterday and had to divert to avoid their camp."

Whatever relief Hawke's visit had brought her up until this point dissipates immediately. _The qunari._Besides the refugees, and the headaches caused by the Knight-Commander's near daily letters to Captain Vallen reminding her of her sworn duty to protect Kirkwall from _everyone_ who would see it harmed, the qunari are Aveline's largest headache.

And it shouldn't be the case. The amount of civil disobedience in their compound is far less than any other district in the city, Hightown included. Even their mercenaries are less aggressive than the average gangs that scurry through Darktown during the day and haunt the rest of Kirkwall in the night. But, from the way people react when the word _qunari_is mentioned, it would be quite easy to assume they're stealing children from their beds and molesting women in the streets.

But they're not. They're just...there.

_Looming_.

Aveline hates how they loom. She's not easily intimidated, her own sense of strength drilled into her very marrow over long years of martial training, but the qunari have not only physical power, and a disconcerting lack of apprehension. Lone qunari, usually scouts or messengers, walk the city unafraid, even in the markets and the crush of Lowtown where they are in a sea of suspicion and Maker only knows how many readied daggers.

It's made things difficult for her. The nobles and some members of the clergy have started to demand that she increase the patrols along the docks, a proactive measure only, but even a subtle change will not go unnoticed by the qunari and they will, correctly, assume paranoia. And who knows how they'd react to _that_? Aveline doesn't want her guards on the frontlines of perceived escalation, nor does she think it prudent considering there's already growing tension in Lowtown as more and more refugees are finding footholds in Kirkwall and settling in, albeit uneasily.

But it's not a _reason_, concern for her men and an eye towards a potentially more volatile situation. She's been told this a hundred times by Bran alone, his eyes rolling only slightly as he says it. It's an _excuse_ for why she doesn't simply throw her people at the problem until it goes away, which is what's expected, of course. It's what _Jeven_ did and, embezzlement, corruption and sacrificing his men for profit aside, Jeven got along pretty well with his superiors.

Aveline shakes it off, a wave of bitter resignation at the realization that, as Captain of the Guard, her power is limited by the whims of the Viscount, the Grand Cleric, the Knight-Commander and, most infuriatingly, the _nobles_.

But Hawke isn't asking about political drama. Hawke will probably never _be_ interested in political drama unless it's scandalous, sexy, or _both_, and she gets enough scraps from Varric and fromthe whispers around Anders' clinic to satisfy her wanton, if mild, curiosity to that end.

No, Hawke is caught up in _something_ and she's trying to decide if she should roll with it or attempt to back out. It's in her stiff posture and the bareflickering of doubt in eyes that are usually much more difficult to read._Maybe Hawke's maturing..._

"So you _don't_ know what I'm talking about? Or...maybe you really like what I've done with my hair this morning?" She whips it around for a brief but vigorous shaking and Aveline can't tell a difference once she'sstopped moving. _So much for maturity._ "Give me something to work with, Aveline. Otherwise I might just blunder into the biggest mistake of my young life." She pauses, her face twisting thoughtfully to the side, "Or of this week...if this week started before daybreak yesterday."

_Oh, Hawke._ "What did you do before daybreak yesterday?" Aveline stands, taking a seat on the edge of her desk. Without intending to, she's become the interrogator, arms folded across her chest and all. "And remember the rules."

"Shortest story ever told- I helped a boy," she smiles prettily, to deflect and to needle, but also to express something close to pride. Stifling a groan of frustration, Aveline moves her hands back down so they're gripping the edge of the desk on either side of her legs. "Oh, don't worry, Captain. It can't _possibly_ be as bad as you're thinking _and_ we took out loads of slavers in the process, which...win!"

Aveline's lips quirk up into a grin despite the fact that she should probably be a little more firm with Hawke when she gets into the vigilantism side of things, although Aveline has no doubts the slavers had it coming...even beyond them being slavers.

"You asked about the Tal'Vashoth?" Aveline forces herself back to business. She doesn't have much time before she's to meet with her lieutenants about the newest recruit training schedule. "All I know is that they're the only ones we can touch without having to answer to the Arishok."

Hawke nods. "So they're not fond of mercenaries, or are the Tal'Vashoth a different breed?"

With a wave of her hand and a dismissive snort, Aveline tries to explain it the way Bran had outlined it for her. "The Tal'Vashoth are hated because they're not...of the Qun. They left their station, became mercenaries who refuse to take any work here, and then started attacking travelers and caravans to survive. My men have taken out a few and _we've_ not experienced any backlash."

"So, if I were to, say...drag the lot of you out to kill every Tal'Vashoth on the Wounded Coast, I wouldn't be casting something like political shitstorm?" Hawke's eyebrow dances up.

"That's disgusting, Hawke," Aveline winces at the mental image. "But I don't think you would. Although it won't be an easy job, if you choose to take it. However..."

It's an idea she shouldn't have, considering her ire just minutes before over the idea of using her men to deal with the qunari "threat." But _this_ could be seen as a compromise...since the nobles had no concept of outcasts and Tal'Vashoth, an operation to remove them from the routes along the coast would prove the guard capable of handling any legitimate threats posed while doing nothing to ruffle the Arishok.

"Take a few guards with you," she turns to rifle through the papers on her desk until her fingers brush against the most recently dated roster. "Brennan, Coulter and...Sorrell should all be in the barracks and about to report for duty. I can pull them off of their patrols."

Hawke, whose expression had brightened at the first suggestion, appears distinctly discomforted by Aveline's choice of reinforcements.

"Brennan's a gifted swordsman, but she's deadly at range and Coulter is one of the best point men in our ranks," her voice goes someplace a little more openly ribald than she'd intended. "And you _know_ what Sorrell can do."

Despite her cheeks turning a shade of pink that makes her eyes seem even more outstandingly green, Hawke smirks it off. "Somehow I don't think what Sorrell does for me will help us much against the Tal'Vashoth."

A shudder is suppressed and Aveline waves her friend to her feet. "He's a good man, you know. Did he ever tell you how he became a guard?"

"We don't actually talk much," Hawke stretches her shoulders. "And I'm not just saying that to put you off food."

"He was working for the coterie when a woman got involved in a transaction that had turned violent." _No surprise _there. "She was left for dead and he carried her to the nearest outpost for medical attention. I didn't know who he was when I asked him to apply."

"I don't believe you," Hawke's hands are defiant on her hips. "It has your meddling ways all over it..."

"And such a nefarious plot it would be," Aveline's more amused than offended by the other woman's suspicion. She did meddle sometimes in the affairs of her friends. But not _that_ often."Helping a well-intentioned thug find respectable work. In your words, I might be the worst person in the world."

Hawke wavers for a moment, and blinks. "I just don't want him to be encouraged to think that-," her faces scrunches. "I don't want him to feel as if _I'm_ waiting on him to be, you know, _respectable_. Because I'm not. If I wanted him...like that, what he does and where he lives wouldn't change that. And now...I don't want him like _that_ and nothing is going to change it."

"Have you tried?" It's an unfair question, but Aveline _does_ like the elf. Of all the men and women she's seen show interest in, or receive interest from, Hawke, he's the only one of the lot who isn't likely to end up in prison, or the Gallows.

"I shouldn't have to _try_," Hawke insists with a smirk. "Or at least that's what the tiny Wil Hawke inside me who inherited her parents' propensity for romantic idealism has managed to convince me."

She pushes her way out of Aveline's office and into the barracks' commons and is almost immediately greeted by Sorrell, who's settled against the side of the fireplace and watching his fellow guards who are coming in to report.

"Sorrell," Aveline nods after he's said his deferential hellos to his captain and his lover, is all business. "You, Coulter and Brennan will be working with Hawke on special patrol up the coast. I expect for you all to mind your duties as guardsmen."

"So no pulling me behind a shrub or rock and having your way with me until _after_all the bad guys are dead." Aveline doesn't have to see Hawke's face to know she's wearing one of her more wicked grins. Sorrell tries very hard not to react, but his eyes are too expressive and he darts them away, his own lips wavering on the brink of a smile.

"Disrespectful, Hawke," Aveline pushes down on her anger, but allows no small amount clear in her voice.

"Apologies, Aveline," she might actually mean it.

"Brennan and Coulter are on the main floor, Captain," Sorrell smoothes things over, or attempts to. "Their patrols aren't scheduled to leave until the next hour."

"Then you can let them know of their change of orders. I'll alert their lieutenants," with a curt nod to Sorrell and less friendly _glare_ at Hawke, Aveline returns to her office to await the coming onslaught of meetings and spend the rest of the day hoping that she's doing the right thing.

* * *

><p>"I promise you, you're fine," Wil rolls her eyes slightly, knowing Sorrell can't see them. "Aveline's one of my best friends...she very well can't think less of you for your association with me. It would be hypocritical!"<p>

"Hmmm," he's not convinced.

"Listen, I've seen her angrier at a _pigeon_ before. Granted, it had shat on her armor," this comes with a helpful demonstration that eases his concern into laughter. "She waved her sword at it, too. It was after _several_ too many ales, but-"

"I'll bring in that whiny bugger if it's the last thing I do," the woman storming up the stairs glares at Wil as if she's the intended recipient of this threat. For her part, Wil's fairly certain she has no idea.

"Pardon?" She attempts politeness, but the woman elbows past, despite there being ample room to go around Wil, and continues up the stairs towards the Viscount's offices. "Andraste's ass, what was that all about?"

Sorrell studies the woman's departing frame, his eyes narrowed in consideration. "She looks familiar, I think I've seen her livery in the alienage...Oh!" He claps his hands and speaks a shade too loudly, several of the nobles littering the mezzanine above them shooting dirty looks at the knife-ear. "The Viscount's son is missing. They posted it this morning. I bet she's here for the reward."

"Missing?" Wil's proud of herself for getting that out first. "And...reward?"

"Probably substantial, knowing Dumar," Sorrell's voice drops and he leans close. "You should go for it."

His expression is suddenly slightly dangerous, and she realizes that his fingers are tentatively pressing against the side of her waist...in ownership, perhaps. Or maybe it's innocent..._We _are_ sleeping together, after all. The boundaries around us are totally confused. _

"Okay," she moistens her suddenly dry lips with the tip of her tongue and tries to ignore the heat that creeps into his gaze. "It's worth a try..."

Bounding back up the stairs means she can shake of a sense of guilty unease. _I shouldn't have made that joke in front of Aveline...it was an acknowledgement and acknowledgements are bad in situations like this._

Like it's life or death and not just sex.

Still, she's grateful when she stumbles over the woman confronting Seneschal Bran, the man working his air of perpetual annoyance to the hilt.

"Insist if you must, but the Viscount will see nobody today," he tilts his head back to indicate the ornate doors behind him. "If you have any information about Saemus, you will deliver it to me."

The woman's hunched forward, her arms inelegantly folded over her chest. "Fine," she spits. "Tell Dumar that my scouts have tracked his son and his qunari captor to the coast and I'm taking all my men after him...and when I return, I expect for him to make a show of the reward."

Her finger is threatening in the seneschal's face, and Wil's uncertain how _that's_ supposed to ingratiate her to _anyone_.

"So _many_ to deal with one qunari seems...," he studies her face, a muscle tugging just beneath his right eye belying the deliberate boredom of his tone. "_Excessive_."

"He _may _be Tal'Vashoth," she snaps, stepping away. "The _Winters_ leave _nothing_ to chance."

Once again she barrels towards Wil, her pale eyes spitting hatred as she snarls, "Get out of my bloody way, princess."

Wil does as demanded, jumping back and staring after for a few long moments before her attention returns to Bran.

He is not thrilled to see her. To put it mildly.

"Yes," he exhales. "What is it?"

"If this is about a rescue, that woman did _not_ seem the type," Wil settles in front of him. "Saemus might be better off unfound."

"_She_ is the type I feared we would attract," he speaks honestly. "Viscount Dumas' son, Saemus, is missing. We suspect he was taken by a qunari. If you would like to...try your hand at securing his safe return...well. We have certainly _not_ granted exclusivity to the Winters and their _violent_ approach."

"Do we know anything about this...qunari?" _Is my life going to become all qunari-centric now? Have I broken some kind of seal, and now it's nothing but huge, half-naked men for the next couple of weeks? _

Bran's cheek twitches again, and she can almost see the wheels turning beyond his light brown eyes. Aveline respected the man's intelligence, if not his approach, and Wil knew whatever information he gave her would need to be parsed for subtext and not merely taken at face value.

"Truly, we know nothing. Saemus was last seen on the coast, and there have been reports that a qunari _may_ have been with him," his voice is smooth. "The main complication is that Saemus has a tendency to be of a _sympathetic_ mind."

"So he may have placed _himself_ in danger?" Sorrell hangs back from her elbow and speaks in a murmur. He's not comfortable addressing Bran directly, but the seneschal responds and seems unfazed by the interruption.

"But it's still danger, nonetheless," he assures them.

"The boy will be home soon enough." Wil doesn't know at what point during the exchange she decided to take on an additional challenge, but it's too late now; Bran's lips quirk in amusement at her self-assurance.

"Declare it if you like, but the reward goes to whoever brings him back _safe_," the way Bran stresses _safe_, Wil has to wonder what sort of reputations these Winters have. "A conversation you are welcome to have with the Winters, should you encounter them on the Wounded Coast."

That's his final word, his attention going from Wil to address a pair of nobles waiting for an audience with the Viscount. His tone is no different when he addresses them and Wil appreciates the consistency, at least.

"Are you ready for an awesome day gallivanting along the coast with me, fighting giant warriors and being harassed by my merry band of misfits?" Wil offers Sorrell a wry smile which he returns, along with a nudge of her shoulder with his own.

"With you?" His eyes soften. "_Always_."

And he means it.

_Balls._

* * *

><p>Anders isn't certain why the elf needs to be here.<p>

Fenris is murmuring complaints as he wipes at his chest, bare and covered in the blood of Maker only knows how many qunari. His breastplate has been torn clean off and cast aside, the overlapping metal plates bent and no longer fitted to each other. Anders would never have guessed that Fenris could be his favorite elf in the room, but here they are.

Granted, his competition isn't exactly stellar. Merrill is bandaging her own hand, eyes buggy and intense as she studies the wound made by a blade she wielded. Justice is urging his tongue to speak out against the demons she summons with her _blood_, but yesterday Wil had been adamant that he cut Merrill some slack, for now. His argument that the mental frailty implied by her over-protectiveness for the elven mage didn't _exactly_ set his mind at ease had fallen on stubborn ears and a scowl...

...but it had been stubborn ears and a scowl lying next to him in an impossibly comfortable bed and even with the pillows that had been stuffed between the two of them as a sort of chastity barricade, it was one of the better wake ups he's had since...ever.

_She's not even paying attention._

_I know_, he acknowledges it, but forces back the miniscule flare or jealousy, knowing better than to give into Justice's slip thin goading. _You can't be jealous, Anders. You _can't_ have what he _can_. Who he can. It's simple._

_And she's just a _woman_._

He _knows_. Yet there's the way his stomach feels at this very moment...hot, queasy. Part of it might be the residual effects of his virus, but all the other symptoms had passed by yesterday afternoon and _this_ has a tendency to intensify when the elf so much as looks at Wil, his violet eyes warm with adoration that she _has_ to see.

"It's a bit sickening," he mutters, bitter coating every syllable. Varric stiffens next to him, turning his head to observe Anders with one eye.

"I can bend over if you want me to, Blondie," the eyebrow in view waggles up. "If that would make things _less_ sickening."

Lips drawn into a tight line, Anders grabs his staff and makes one final pass of his comrades. Despite the fact that they'd entered the Tal'Vashoth's hold in the coastal cave, they'd managed to only encounter a few of the warriors at a time. Sheer numbers and smart positioning had given them an excellent advantage. Only once they'd reached this final room had the qunari proven any real challenge, and...well, they were all alive and Fenris had gotten the worst of it, damaged armor and some bruising along his pectoral.

Hardly anything to get excited about.

Wil's working with her sister and her non-crossbow obsessed rogues to free the dead raiders from their horrible burden of stolen loot. Anders wishes he could just leave, slip out of the cave unnoticed to return to Kirkwall and his clinic. It feels as if he's been gone forever, and they're rapidly approaching the expedition. In fact, he'd taken his dinner the night before at the Hanged Man, listening to Varric and Wil discuss the supplies that Bartrand can't be trusted to provide and asking _him_ questions about the Deep Roads that betrayed their mutual lack of knowledge regarding the dwarven substructures.

He shivers, and this time it's a different sick that threatens the contents of his stomach. For a few precipitous seconds he's inundated by the feel of being below the earth, miles and miles and forever it seems like with nothing but rock, stale air and darkspawn ahead, above and beside. What had seemed so distant on the morning he'd offered an odd but helpful refugee his assistance along with his maps is...soon.

_What was I even thinking?_ He mops at his suddenly sweaty forehead with the rag he keeps near his throat for times like this. Wouldn't_ thanks for helping me kill templars, now here's your maps and have a nice life! _been so much easier?

Undoubtedly, as Wil signals for them to head back to the coast and waits until all have started ahead, a great, shaggy guard named Coulter on point with Fenris close behind, and a smitten by exposed manflesh Isabela close behind _him_. When all have passed, she falls into step beside him, her long strides shortening to fit his own which betray the residual fatigue in his limbs.

"How goes the recovery?" She walks with her hands behind her back, her gaze ahead. "I imagine that, were you your own patient, you'd probably tell yourself not to do things like fight qunari."

His mouth curls at the corner. "Maybe not in so many words, but _yes_. These sorts of excursions are usually _not_ in a sick person's best interest."

"Yet here you are," she offers him an unexpected glance and he catches the quickest flash of gratitude

"I'm just here for the celebratory pie," he pauses to lean against his staff or, more accurately, to get a better glimpse of her amused expression. "You _did_ promise celebratory pie, didn't you?"

"Sure," she comes through with a wide smile. "For you, _anything_."

And he doesn't think she means it _literally_ but it's nice to hear even if she's just being friendly, and what just moments ago had felt like a slight breakthrough is a backslide into...he studies her face for a moment, keeping all the things he notices from fully connecting with what it means to be noticing them.

He catches a fresh trickle of crimson winding its way down her neck and his fingers are automatically drawn to seek it out. Hair is pushed aside until he feels the sticky warmth of the source, just behind her left ear, a healing spell already in progress as he searches the area for knots before he's satisfied that it's just a gash.

She's got her eyes on his wrist and _not _his face, and the smile has faded to caution. "I know for a fact that you don't have to touch someone while you heal them."

It's true, and he acknowledges it by relaxing his arm and allowing his entire palm to settle against her jaw, his thumb dragging gently across her cheek. For a moment she gives in, her eyes falling closed against the crystalline light that spills across her features, but she catches herself before she can turn her slightly parted lips against the inside of his wrist and then it's a decidedly _less_ amused glare.

"You _must_ be feeling better if you're willing to play Sarcastic Healer," it's a deliberate missing of the point. She leaves him at that, moving quickly until she catches up with their group to take her place between Bethany and Varric at the rear.

Anders gives himself little longer to pull it together, his bloodied hand curling to hold onto the warmth imparted by skin to skin and desire being pulled to the surface.

_She's just a woman. _

And even though he's not letting it fully connect, the sensation of her against him and the many ways that he shouldn't be wanting _more_ of that, much less _all_ of it, it makes the rest of the slog back to the coast so very tolerable, especially when the elf goes to bump Wil's arm, a show of affectionate solidarity, and she responds by crossing both over her chest to prevent it from happening again.

* * *

><p>It's a mess and Wil just <em>steps<em> in it.

The Winters get there first, as fair and as square as these things can be, and the qunari is slain, on his side and bent at the waist next to a wooden crate that Wil imagines he'd been sitting on when he'd died. This theory is borne out by Saemus Dumar's reaction, his brilliant aqua eyes burning with frustration, hurt and rage as he turns against the woman Wil had seen earlier in the Keep.

"He was _no threat_, and you _killed_ him," his voice, cultured and clearly more fluent in philosophical debates than _this_, seethes. "You vashedan _whore_."

Even Wil cringes at _that_ one, and it only inflames the mercenary further.

But she keeps her anger _sharp_.

"Is that one of _their_ words? A sure sign that you need to be taken back to _daddy_," it's all incisively vicious. "You're playing too nice with those things...and I'll wager you've gone even further than that, you twisted little _brat_."

It spits out, it jabs, and Saemus flinches as if he's been slaped, his face closing for a moment in shame...Wil cannot tell if it's because the accusations are true or if he merely wishes they were.

"This all seems a bit rough for a rescue," Wil intervenes as smoothly as she can, forcing herself between Saemus and the woman.

"Competition. Heh," she sneers, eyes blazing. "I should have known the moment I saw you and your knife-ear that you'd try to steal what's rightfully mine. Don't know why you Fereldan's need the coin, ain't cost nothing to fuck a stray dog, and that's all your lot is good for."

It doesn't really _anger_ Wil to hear her nationality so succinctly dismissed, but it seems like something that deserves a response.

"Then I will resist my over_whelming_ urge to hump your leg," Wil deadpans. "For the time being."

"The Winters...," her eyes darken, but her tone remains the same. "_I_ have already claimed him."

As if he's a _thing_ to be claimed, and not a person.

"Serah," Saemus whips his head towards Wil, his hard expression at odds with the wild mass of ebony hair that drifts around his bone white face. He's a whimsical looking young man, strong-featured but somehow fragile. His voice, though, belies strength as he lays out his terms. "I will go back, if I must, but I _cannot_ see these..._murderers_ rewarded."

The woman has a dagger in her hand, pulled out of nowhere, and she dances it towards Saemus' breast as she speaks.

"You really are the worst kind of spoiled shit," she snaps."Fine. Then I'll just cut out your tongue and demand more coin for bringin' you back quiet." She turns on Wil, the dagger joined by another and they catch the sunlight as she flips them around for a better grip, "As for you, I could do with some entertainment until the others show up. You and your _friends_ look like a nice little diversion."

It lasts all of four minutes.

"So who, exactly, was the diversion supposed to be? Us?" Wil, struggling to catch her breath, glances at Varric who shrugs and tries to suppress a smile. The mercenary woman is dead, as are the men she'd had with her when Wil and her _friends_ had arrived. Bodies litter the sand around them, some of them still smoldering from Bethany's exquisitely timed fire spell, and their leader is face down or, rather, _belly_ down alongside the dead qunari. Her face is someplace else, her head flung back by the combined force of Wil's sword and the woman's own forward momentum. "I can't say I feel _too_ bad about how this turned out."

Saemus is barely able to keep on his feet, his skin glistening with sweat as he struggles not to look at of the corpses or Wil's companions as they pick over the corpses.

"Sweet Andraste," gone is the qunari posturing. "I've never seen so many dead bodies...so much _blood_."

Wil, warmed by a flare of sympathy, feels suddenly as if she's sullied something quite pure. His face is tense with distaste, but there's also regret that shadows his eyes...guilt for all the lives lost on account of _him_.

"Hopefully you'll _never_ become used to it," she scouts the camp to avoid further involvement in his disquiet. One side is covered by a sheer stone wall and two sides are on the water, and not in a fun, beachy way. It's nothing but a precipitous drop down into jagged rocks and the foaming sea that crashes against them, improbable for escape and impossible for ambush. The only way in or out is along the paths that brought them here in the first place. "But now's not the time to soil yourself. More will be here, and we'll _have_ to fight."

Anders glances up from where he's been rummaging through a chest for supplies. "There are worse places to be trapped like rats. If we die here, at least we die with the sun on our faces and the ocean breeze in our hair."

"Strangely optimistic of you," Wil tries to frown but when she looks at him, _really_ looks, all she's seeing is the need in his eyes as he held her face and all she's feeling is her own pooling somewhere below her stomach and pressing hard against the inside of her throat. _It's not fair of him to do that to me_, she _knows_ this. But it's..._something_.

_What I want._

She ignores the voice, ignores whatever Anders says in response, ignores the growing sweat stains forming under Saemus' underarms that stretch almost to his waist. There's a real chance that they'll be overwhelmed soon and they can't be unprepared.

"Should I warn them, Hawke?" Isabela, from her position closest to the paths, is practically coming out of her skin with excitement. _Strange, she seemed _less_ thrilled earlier._

"I think Bethany and Varric can..." she shouts towards her sister. "Some flaming bolts to the face might convey the signal quite efficiently, I think."

Isabela cackles, a magnificently hearty laugh. "They heard you, Hawke! One of them just went, 'Did she say flaming bolts? Oh, shit!'."

So they're close. But there's only a narrow passage into the camp, and Wil has so many on her side this afternoon...

"Choke the access. Bethany, start chucking fireballs as soon as they crest the hill and Merrill, focus your attention on the same spot. Fenris, Coulter and Isabela can handle those who make it through," she glances back at Saemus. "Anders, you and Sorrell stay with Saemus. Varric, Brennan and I will watch for anyone who finds a back entrance."

Wil's orders are still echoing when she hears the first _fsssssch_ of flame being flung through the air. It lands just past the choke point and, from the screaming, seems to have taken down at least three of the Winters. A few slip by, one caught immediately by Coulter rushing forward, shoulder down and tucked behind his shield as he attacks. Fenris chases the other towards Isabela, the man clearly confused by the glowing half-naked elven death that is bearing down upon him and the half-naked, dagger-wielding wench that gleefully awaits.

From her vantage point, WIl can see _almost_ everything and what she sees makes her feel strangely proud as the Winters are easily dispatched, even though they outnumber her and her companions at least seven to one.

She doesn't even need to draw her blade, a clear sign of a clean victory if ever there was one. What's more, most of the bodies are in one area, which makes for efficient looting.

_How practically I deal with death today. _

Saemus won't be thrilled to have to wade through corpses, but Wil doesn't imagine anything could make him happy at a time like this. With the threat seemingly gone, he's finally settled beside the fallen qunari, his knees pulled tight to his chest as he mourns his dead friend.

"Ashaad never lied or coddled," it's a eulogy. "You were either worth his time or you were not." He struggles to his feet, resolution clear in his eyes. "They're not brutes. That's what we hear, what we're told to believe and it's _not true_. Take me to my father, serah. Take me so I can try to make him see. Before it's too late."

"You and Ashaad were...friends?" Wil hates that she fumbled for the word, because she didn't mean to imply _more_ than that. "I mean...clearly this was not your first encounter."

"I was...we met shortly after the ship ran aground. I was fleeing the Keep, my father. I come here to think, freely and away from everything, everyone," he clearly sees the Keep as just as much of a prison as would the criminals it holds. "Ashaad was mapping the coast, to 'find an answer for the Arishok'. I had so many doubts...the qunari have none."

"I've not heard much about the qunari being _friendly_, though. I've met about fifty Tal'Vashoth today, and only one so much as attempted anything _close_ to polite conversation," she's being _mostly_ facetious. About the Tal'Vashoth, at least.

Saemus smiles grimly. "Perhaps friend is not the right word...I am the Viscount's son, _that_ is my identity. Ashaad saw _me_ and _I_ was worth his time. We were both seeking something, and that was enough."

It explains so much and ends her desire to push.

"So...," with a nod to Ashaad's lifeless form. "I'm not certain what one does with a dead qunari...do we bury him? And do we tell his people?"

At some point during the conversation, as if stealing strength from his slain companion, Saemus' romanticism has turned into something practical.

"It is _just_ a body," the skin around his eyes pull tight as he struggles within himself to see it that way. "It deserves no special treatment. That is, apparently, their way. As for the others...they'll know. Whether they deign to acknowledge what happened, I have no idea." Then, without prompting, his tone grows wistful. "I did not understand Ashaad, not completely. But it was so very worth trying."

Wil tries arrange her face into an expression of understanding, because she knows what he's trying to say. Isn't she caught in her own little web of confusion? Feelings that shouldn't be felt, on top of a lifetime of ingrained belief on top of, yeah, maybe a little hero-worship because how many people are willing to dedicate themselves to something so thoroughly that they'd hand over their mind _and_ their body? But, despite the complications and frustrations, wouldn't it be worth trying?

"Serah?" Saemus' gaze is surprisingly sympathetic.

"Yes," she drowns her musings in _purpose_. "We should get back to the Keep. The Viscount is worried."

It's the first really wrong thing she's said to him.

"The _Viscount_ sends thugs to do a father's job," Saemus fumes. "I was in no danger until his 'help' arrived."

"This might have been avoided had you just told him what you wanted...where you were going," Wil gestures to the corpses around them, remembering the warnings about Saemus implied in what Seneschal hadn't said. "He might have taken a different approach."

"Or not let me leave at all," he sneers. "_Keep_ your assumptions. He does not hear me, and he is as tired of being disappointed as I am of bearing it. I thought this might be...but now, Ashaad is dead. It's not right _or_ fair."

Wil bites her tongue. Saemus is right that she should mind herself as she knows literally nothing of the Viscount _or_ his relationship with his son.

"I..." she wants to apologize, but doesn't trust her ability to not screw things up even more. It _has_ been known to happen_._ "Let's go, Saemus. It's getting late, and I'm not much in the mood to fight anyone right now."

Anger draining from his face, the young man nods in agreement. He, no doubt, would rather not see her fight anyone, either.

* * *

><p>"Who would have guessed that being accused of screwing dogs would be the high point of my day?" Hawke murmurs aside to Sorrell. He's the only one besides her sister that had accompanied her all the way back to the Keep. Beth is currently in Aveline's office, catching up.<p>

"I think _anyone_ who knows you probably could have guessed that," he laughs. "Although how many people can say they've been thrown out of the Viscount's office for calling him stubborn?"

It's said a bit too loudly, because Bran hears, his eyes rolling upward and his mouth twisting into a put upon frown. While it's mortifying to think about the lapse in judgment that allowed her to say it, Wil can admit that his reaction to her remark that the Viscount and Saemus were both being hardheaded had been hilariously over the top.

"I should tell Aveline...it would give them something to commiserate over," Wil imagines the seneschal slumped in Aveline's comfy chair, complaining bitterly about Serah Hawke and her mouth. Aveline would, no doubt, offer him a flask of whiskey to ease the pain she herself knew so well. "Who knows? Maybe Aveline can get another promotion out of it."

"Captain's too good at what she does to be promoted. Even _I_ know that," Sorrell's lips retain a ghost of a smile and his posture is relaxed as he lounges against the wall next to her. With his battle marked Kirkwall livery, and roguishly disheveled hair, he cuts a lithe yet handsome figure.

He's also nice. Even Fenris had thawed a bit, and she swore she'd overheard a chuckle or two emitting from the foul-tempered elf. So funny, too. And not half bad in bed.

_Also, not possessed by a spirit that might very well be the thing that makes him a man that I want to be with. _

_This is a dangerous road, Wilhelmina._

"Maker's breath. What's taking so long?" She wields her impatience like a shield against her own thoughts. They're waiting for the accountant to process her payment, which promises to be substantial. Not that it will seems like that much once she divides it seven ways, but she _wants_ every penny. Her mother will need coin while Wil and Bethany are in the Deep Roads and Gamlen certainly can't be counted on to support her. As a matter of fact, Aveline will be the one who keeps Leandra's purse. Just to be on the safe side. Enough of the cash Wil earns goes to the Blooming Rose already via Isabela, Gamlen would probably earn himself a statue in the foyer if she left any laying around the apartment.

"Hey," Sorrell's hand _out of nowhere_ is on her shoulder, and his thumb sneaks it's way beneath the edge of her undershirt. He doesn't wear normal gauntlets, the leather binds his fingers and compromises his grip, so she can feel the warmth of his skin at her collarbone. "I want to buy you dinner...you and Bethany, if she wants to come. There's a common house near Lirene's in Lowtown that Donnic swears serves the best ...what?"

Her hand is wrapped around his, her fingers sliding between his and her chest. "Not tonight, Sorrell. I've barely been home except to nap for Maker knows how long, and I'll be leaving soon. I really should spend some time with Mother before I'm gone for a month or two."

Something strikes through his eyes, not quite outright disappointment but close. She thinks he's going to hold it in but he gives small a huff and raises his eyebrows. "Why do you think I want to take you to dinner?"

"To thank me for getting you out of patrol?" She offers a hopeful grin. "You have to admit, we had way more fun running around killing qunari than you would've had frowning at beggars in the alienage."

He leans away from her, his lips twitching into a half-hearted smile. "You have me there, Hawke."

And he leaves it at that, because it's what he does. They wait for the reward in silence and he parts ways with her at the barracks, his gaze less warm but still familiar as he wishes her good night and, if he doesn't see her before she leaves, a safe and successful trip.

"Copper for your thoughts, Mina," Bethany's managed to sneak up on her. "Not that you need any more coin."

When Wil turns, she sees her sister's eyes seize upon the small, velvet purse embroidered with the seal of Kirkwall in white thread.

"Fancy, isn't it?" Wil hefts it aloft before chucking it into her pack. There's a whole jumble of loot within, including some more that might interest the mysterious Sebastian Vael, for whom she's been killing mercenaries. Apparently the Tal'Vashoth and an arm of the Flint Company had encountered each other on the coast before she could get to either. "Our cut of this should cover Mother while we're gone. Whatever I can get that dwarf to pay me will buy our supplies."

Bethany pulls her black hair away from her neck, wrapping it around her hand in thought. "What are we going to do if this all works out? I mean, if we _actually_ find a fortune in the Deep Roads, and we get the estate back...what then?"

"I haven't really thought ahead that far," Wil shrugs and heads back to the Keep. "Mother will probably want me to play at politics or get married to some nobleman's son. You know, like Saemus. Which means that most of my time will be spent hiding at the Hanged Man or in the clinic. So...pretty much what we're doing now, only with a less rampant bloodshed. Why? Do you have a better plan?"

"No!" Bethany takes her elbow as they descend the main staircase. "Although...I didn't think he was that bad, to be honest. I have no love for the qunari after...but I can understand what he means. Sometimes I feel like _I_ have no identity, beyond being your apostate sister."

Wil's stomach clenches and she fights the urge throw her arm around her...apostate sister.

"I don't mind, most the time," Beth's speaking frankly. "I actually like it, because it's safe. But sometimes I wish I could meet someone first, get to know them independently of you, or Mother." She laughs, "But don't worry, I'm not about to wander off and fall in love or convert or anything."

"You could if you wanted to," Wil hates the thought, herself, but it's true.

"I bet if his father had said that, and meant it, Saemus would have never ran off," she squeezes Wil's arm. "It's funny how people work. What they cling to and what they let get away."

It _is_ funny, and it lurks at the back of Wil's mind like a sinister crow.

"You're pretty astute, Apostate Sister Hawke," Wil leads them through the door and into a brisk early evening that's perfect for many things, but especially _this_. Which is important and, as Bethany said, _safe_. "Do you want to stop by the Hanged Man and see if Varric will buy us a couple rounds? I need to tell him how I got kicked out of the Viscount's office for being an ass...surely that deserves _some_ kind of reward."

"If only that's how things worked around here," Bethany sighs dramatically. "We'd be rich already."

* * *

><p><strong>Note from SF: <strong>Thanks goes out to Sandtigress for her invaluable feedback and editing (you could imagine how typo ridden this would be without her) and keldjinfae for giving me so much to think about when it comes to the Saemus Situation.

Thanks to everyone for reading and reviewing!


	19. Moods

"And then..." Varric takes a long draught of his cider before slamming his mug down with dramatic portent. Because of flourishes like these, his retelling of their chat with the Arishok has lasted longer than the meeting itself. "She just...walked away."

"What?" Isabela throws one hand out to smack against Wil's shoulder. "Hawke, you...I don't know if you're the dumbest person in Kirkwall or the _bravest_."

"Or maybe I was just that tired of his unceasing _crypticness_." _I don't think that's actually a word._ Wil pushes at the goblet in front of her. She's only had two glasses of wine, but they were on an empty stomach and, coupled with her pre-existing buoyant relief, she's even mouthier than usual. Which is a dangerous state for her to be in, really, but right now she just can't be assed to care. "I missed you there, Bela. I can't believe you bailed on me like that."

"Uh..." the pirate's eyes dart towards the table at the accusation in her friend's voice. "I had places to be, you know how it is."

"I guess the bar _does_ get lonely when you're not flouncing all over it," Wil didn't buy the her line earlier, and she certainly isn't going to swallow it _now_. "I just thought _you_ would jump at the chance to ogle a compound full of huge, muscular men with a collective vendetta against clothing."

Fenris shakes his head, probably in disgust. Wil's gonna let it pass...he _did_ get her out of a potentially messy situation with his _secret qunari knowledge_.

"I was impressed, Hawke," Varric's sincere. "You handled the Arishok almost...gracefully? And that's not a word I ever thought I'd use to describe you, so you know that I mean it."

"Well I'm glad you told me before I got _completely_ trashed," she snatches the bottle of strawberry wine from where it's settled itself in front of Fenris. "Chances are good that I won't remember _much_ of this conversation."

She doesn't know why she's in such a hurry to obliterate herself this evening. The meeting with the Arishok had been, despite all odds, a success. They'd earned some coin and gotten out alive. Most importantly, Tintop had been roundly dismissed by the Arishok and, bonus of bonuses, he'd bitterly fired Wil. She had no pity for the dwarf considering that he'd been as willfully misguided as she'd suspected from the outset. She also suspects the he'd have turned on her in a second had the Arishok any inclination towards vengeance for the slain Tal'Vashoth.

So she's relieved. _Definitely_ relieved because it's behind her now. Besides having no idea what sort of reception she was to expect, the qunari compound is not what she would call a _happy_ place. It's not the undercity, or even the alienage, but it's forebodingly sterile considering all the creature comforts the Viscount has provided Kirkwall's foreign guests. One day she'll ask Fenris if the Qun forbids smiling, or if the qunari are simply lacking the correct muscles for such an activity. It seems unlikely, considering how very not lacking in muscles they otherwise are, but anything is possible.

"Are you feeling all right, Hawke?" Isabela's concern is grudging. The men are discussing a recently arrived shipment that Varric has heard contains a large quantity of 'reclaimed' arms from the Blighted portions of Ferelden. Wil perks up at _that_ more than Isabela's query. If she'd been _all right_ before she'd heard that, _all right_ is a distant state once she _has_.

"What?" Anger has a sobering effect."They're selling our shit? We lost _everything_ and now it's going to be sold to us for three times what it's worth...is _that_ their angle?"

Fuming does not _begin_ to describe it.

Varric is as defensive as _he_ gets, palms up in apology. "It's just a rumor. Although I know for a fact that there's a crate marked _Hawke_ that may or may not have been delivered to a certain apartment in the slums this evening," he smirks. "Well...I might have misread the manifest. _Hawke_ could have been _Harke_, or maybe you're not the only Hawke in Low- _ow_. You _do_ realize that you're incredibly strong?"

_Incredibly strong?_ She's not even squeezing him as hard as she _could_ be. Her arms are merely around his shoulders and...so she _might_ be hurting him. But, if what he's saying is _true_...

"It can't be true," she lets him go and takes the seat closet to him, her posture absurdly erect and all signs of intoxication gone. "The darkspawn were obliterating everything in their path. And not only in the south. Anders says that parts of Denerim were all but burnt to the ground. Nothing of ours could have survived, much less be identifiable as _ours_."

"I guess you'll just have to check for yourself then," he shrugs, noncommittally. Still, there's a gleam in his eyes that belies the truth . "I'll keep my fingers crossed in the meantime, and pick up your tab. You've had a long couple of weeks, and they're not going to get any easier."

He's referring to the expedition. It's looming closer each day, everything falling into place with almost unnerving ease. Their last hurdle is his oily brother. Bartrand has been told that Varric knows a potential partner, but has _no idea_ that this potential partner is one of the rejected Fereldan thugs that had plagued him when he'd started hiring. Varric has arranged for Wil, Bethany and Anders to meet them in Hightown tomorrow to discuss the terms of partnership and what else needs to be done before departure.

Despite Varric's optimism that Bartrand's in no position to reject her offer, Wil's dreading _that_ little encounter almost as much as she'd been dreading a head to head with the Arishok. At least the Arishok's rational, in his own maddening way. Bartrand's greedy capriciousness is something to behold; he's just as likely to reject her on the grounds of being too successful in gathering what he requires, namely coin, maps and an actual Grey Warden, as he is to embrace what she has to offer.

"I think you did it so I'd be in a good mood when we talk to Bartrand," her attitude comes across more ungrateful that she intends as she sinks back into her chair, still not believing that there might be something...They'd left so much behind. Clothing, books, a trunk of her father's that had held robes and journals from as far back as his days in the Circle. They'd even been unable to bring Carver's sword with them, not that it would have been _worth_ anything. The ogre had broken it almost as easily as it had... "But what about those of us who don't have a bighearted puppet master to _coerce_ our belongings back where they...belong?"

Varric's brow wrinkles at her strident tone. Clearly he had been hoping that getting hers would be enough. And normally it _would_ be.

"Hawke's having a bad night," Isabela informs him before turning to Wil. "I suggest you pay a visit to your elf tonight, or maybe Anders has the cure for your _somewhere_ in his clinic." She drops her voice to not even close to a whisper, "I'll give you a hint, _sweetie_. Check under his robes."

That's it. Wil stands. _Maker, never question Isabela's motives or tease her about being a barfly._

"I'm done for the night," she mumbles, her face hot with embarrassment that's more than _just_ that. "I'm clearly not meant to be around people."

Isabela says nothing but splashes a liberal amount of amber whiskey into her cup, and even more onto Varric's table top. With a practiced snap of her wrist, she throws the spirit back and swallows without relish or reaction, eyes hard and refusing to meet Wil's.

"I will walk with you, Hawke," Fenris gathers the near empty bottle of strawberry wine and tucks it between his side and his elbow. Also deliberate is the way _he_ avoids her consternated glare.

"Did you miss what I just said? About the people?"

_This_ catches him, his head tilting in that strange way of his. From behind the fall of white hair, she can see his eyes gleaming and his wine reddened lips pursing in bemusement, "Do you doubt that I know what it means to want to be alone?"

She concedes his point with a sigh and a reluctant wave good-bye directed at Varric. An apology will be given in the morning, when she can perhaps put into words what's making her feel so raw.

Kirkwall is remarkably bandit free this evening, making Wil and Fenris' stroll to the slums unremarkable when normally the pair of them attract every lowlife in the area with a suicide wish. True to his word, he gives her the space and silence she needs and it helps to be with someone who is neither seeking her nor wanting to be sought out. Not _tonight_ at least.

_Well_, she thinks as he turns to her with _I have something to say _all over his face, _at least not until _now_._

"I would caution you, Hawke," there's an unusual amount of hesitation in this statement. "Our meeting with the Arishok could have gone...badly."

"_That's_ an understatement," she smirks, but refuses to relax her posture to match her lighter tone.

"You have been lucky...but it cannot last. One day you are going to be betrayed, and the threat is not limited to the likes of Javaris," and of course he's talking about mages. _Again_. "I'm not comfortable working with the abomination."

_Oh?_

"Oh?" For some reason, it feels like a punch to the stomach. "I guess that's fair, since he's not comfortable working for you."

"Yes, yes," his voice is sharp, his ebony brows drawn together. "I, too, am a monster. Violent, angry and unnatural. I know what you think of me."

The way he says it is _I don't want to care, but I do and I hate it._

"Fenris," Wil's hand goes out to touch his shoulder, to reassure. Then she remembers two things- the first is how she regularly counters his jabs at Anders, Merrill and all mages by reminding him of his brands and his..._skill set_. The second is a bit more gruesome and involves a Tevinter slaver who'd made the mistake of grabbing the elf.

Her hand falls to her side, contact _not_ made.

"I never intended to..." but she can't even say _that_ honestly, because she _had_ intended to. Fenris presses on one of the few nerves she has, regularly hits at one of the few things that honestly matters to her. "Listen...I don't think you realize..." She can tell by his sneer that he doesn't _care_ to realize, but she pushes ahead because it will make her feel better. Maybe. "I was loved and protected by mages, and I have seen the best of what people can be and they are mages. I can't look at a mage and not understand. Well...unless they're _crazypants_, in which case...yes, I kinda get what you're saying and try to react accordingly. But it's not _magic's_ fault. If there are horrible mages, it's because they're people and people are, as a rule, horrible."

He continues to glare, although she sees some small glint of understanding in his eyes. It's not acceptance, but it can't be _that_ hard for him to acknowledge that _Bethany_, at least, is important to her and that Bethany isn't an abomination or a blood mage.

But Bethany is not Anders, and that's who he's on about this evening. "I have helped you this long, Hawke. And you know where to find me...but from here, I refuse to fight beside him."

Wil's eyes burn with unshed tears. _Flames, what is _wrong_ with me tonight?_ It's not that huge, considering Anders has already claimed he's moving on after the expedition. She hadn't planned on taking Fenris with her to the Deep Roads, so..._why do I even care?_

Covering for her dodgy emotions, Wil merely nods. "Understood."

"All right," he gives her tenement a sideways glance, his gauntleted hand tightening around the neck of his wine bottle. "Have a...night."

She won't watch him go, and he doesn't offer to escort her to her building, nor does he wait to see her safely in.

"Why in Andraste's name couldn't you have told me this at the bar?" She yells at his retreating form.

He shrugs and continues on his way.

* * *

><p><em>Of <em>course_ Anders is here._

Actually, her first thought upon entering her apartment to see her mother in the corner knitting, her feet propped up on Bello who is curled against the chair and in a tongue-lolling blissful state of sleep, and her sister and Anders side by side at the table pouring over a huge book Wil knows to be written entirely in Arcanum is _How very homey._

And it is. If Carver were sprawled out on the floor with a war serial, and if Anders wasn't Anders but their _father_...

He's even happy to see her, his amber eyes warming and whatever point he'd been in the midst of making allowed stolen by a quick smile. It does _things_ to her stomach and her stomach just can't take it tonight.

"I assume everything went well with the Arishok?" It's an innocent question that comes from a place of genuine curiosity but it makes Wil wince because-

"_Arishok?_" Leandra's knitting falls to her lap. "Isn't he the...Wilhelmina! What do you think you're doing?"

_Fuck me. _

"Walking through the living room on my way to take a bath," she forces a smile. "At least that's what I want to do. It all depends on how gritty the bathwater is."

It won't work on Leandra, who is knocking her foot against Bello's side so she can stand.

"Seriously, Mother. No need to get up. It was just a cordial meeting to discuss a potential business arrangement," Wil glares at Anders, who has enough decency to appear apologetic. "It's done, everything's fine."

"Fine?" She's finally on her feet and pulling her ancient silk housecoat tight around her small frame. "You could have been taken captive, killed or worse. Associating with those..."

"Don't even say it, Mother," Wil cautions. If Leandra was only concerned for her well-being, Wil could understand. But she knows mother well enough; it's the state of their reputation that has her fretful. The powerful are paying attention to the qunari, Aveline has confirmed that much, and it's certain that Wil's visit won't go unnoticed.

"Fine, I won't," Leandra falls back into her chair, a dramatic gesture that sends the hem of her robe billowing around her knees. "You _do_ know what's best."

_What?_ "Andraste's ass! what's that supposed to mean?"

"Mina," Bethany's voice is a caution that Wil ignores.

"_What?_ When have I ever said that I know what's best? By now it should be abundantly clear to everyone in this room that I'm just tripping along and praying that I don't screw things up _too_ much."

"That's not true, Wil."

"You had the opportunity to ask Viscount Dumar about the estate," Leandra's arms fold across her chest, disappointment settling like fine lines around her features. "He was in debt to you, Wilhelmina. You had the most powerful man in Kirkwall in a position where he'd have given you anything you wanted, and you had to go and smart off instead."

_Why am I not surprised she knows about that?_ Wil clenches her now shaking hands into tight fists. It's not a threatening gesture, but an attempt to gain control of herself. The last thing she wants to do is lash out at her mother.

"Well I _am_ my father's daughter. I can't imagine he'd have kept his mouth shut, either. And Carver would have gotten himself outright banned," anger spikes in her, a rare and dangerous thing. "In case you're wondering what it would be like had he lived instead of me."

"Mina!" Bethany's dismay is like a sharp blow, but it's not Bethany who grabs her and pulls her into the washroom.

"What are you doing?" She waits until the door is closed behind them to shake Anders off.

"I don't know," he frowns. "But it didn't seem right to just sit there and let that scene play itself out any further."

Wil stares for a few seconds, torn between gratitude and resentment. She has no doubt that _tomorrow_ she'll regret every word she's said to everyone she's said them, but right she's full of a frustration that needs some sort of outlet.

"It's like she expects me to be some sort of politically savvy...thing," her fingers drag along the water in the bath. It's impossible to know for certain, but it seems _relatively_ clean. Anders goes further than that, submerging his hand, presumably to warm the bath for her. "If she wanted children who could navigate the nobility, then she should have stayed in Kirkwall and married her betrothed and _not_ eloped with an apostate. She chose this life for herself despite knowing what she was up against. But she was in love and she ignored the risks and now _I'm_ the one who has to figure out how to make _her_ life worth living again."

At some point in her rant, she sees the faintest crackle of blue in Anders dark eyes, but that doesn't bother her as much as the faint but visible hurt there, too. _That's_ his own.

"This is the second time you've chastised your parents for their relationship," he cringes slightly, either because he's taking it so personally or because he's admitting to having kept track. "I'm getting the impression that you think your mother should have done what she was expected of her, and your father should have minded his place as an apostate."

"Yes, that's _exactly_ what I think. You know me so well," she pulls off her tunic and flings it past his head and begins to undo the laces of her trousers. "Actually, I just wished she would have...thought. What would happen to her brother when he was left alone to care for their parents? What would happen when her husband's magic was discovered, forcing them on the run again? What would happen if their children were mages? She made a decision before I was conceived, and now I'm not even allowed to be the logical result."

"You don't think you're being the slightest bit unreasonable?" Anders is keeping his gaze from the general area of her body as she kicks off her boots and scoots her breeches down her hips. "She expects too much from you, but you can't fault her for wanting to be happy."

"No, I can't," she exhales. And he's absolutely right. "But holy fuck, is it too much to ask for some acknowledgement that I'm doing the best I can, under the circumstances? I don't even need thanks, silence would work _just_ as well."

Anders doesn't respond to that. His hand withdraws from the water and is wiped absentmindedly along his sleeve. Then, after assessing her from the corner of his eye, "You deserve more than silence, Wil."

"Not tonight," she laughs, and it does nothing to ease the tension that can't be relieved by ranting, or even understanding in the eyes of a man that she likes to know understands, even if _understanding_ is subject to the whims of his resident spirit. "I just need a bath and then...stuff. Has Bethany said anything about a crate from Ferelden?"

"Hmmm?" He'd been lost, apparently, and his head shakes to focus. "She did mention it...it's in your room, I think. Why? Are you expecting something?"

"Sort of," thinking about it should help. Then, because it seems like a thing to, she reaches up to ruffle his hair, her fingers deftly pulling the tie that holds it back from his face while her other hand tugs his jacket sharply to the left. By the time she's done, he's even supplied his own blush and confused half smile. "That should keep Mother from asking too many questions."

"You want her to think you ravished me?" His hands go up to brush the fallen strands from his eyes.

"Would you prefer that she grill you on why I'm so petulant tonight? If so, Isabela's leading theory is that I need to get laid. That's _also_ a sound way to deflect," she chooses to _brain ignore_ the heat that flares from him at that, although there are _other_ parts of her that refuse to do likewise. "So let me get to my bath before it gets cold, and I'll be out in a bit. Also...could you have Beth bring me something to wear once I'm done?"

He hesitates.

"And I ate at the Hanged Man...so you can have my dinner."

This gets him moving, food a motivator second only to _templars!_ in his life.

Alone, she removes her breastband, and slips out of her smallclothes. The bath, when she checks it, is almost perfect. The warm water eases the knots of stress that have settled into her shoulders as she slides in. It also cradles her, her arms free to float and her legs weightless.

Now that she's here she just needs to relax, but her hand's decided to explore down her stomach of its own volition in response to a silent motion made by Anders' body. She stops it and clamps down on the flicker of a daydream involving Isabela's suggestion and his effectiveness at diagnosing such conditions.

He's very effective, she's guessing.

But he's not up for her fantasies, or for her. And _she's_ not willing to add another embarrassment to this day by risking Bethany coming in to find her with her fingers _in_ places, or _tweaking_ places, or overhear her moaning incriminating things

_...that doesn't look like any tongue depressor that _I've_ ever seen..._

_Just relax, Wil. _And that could easily be a line in her fantasy, but it's heard in her voice and she's inclined to obey, drifting away from the hundreds of tiny things that are slowly bleeding her.

* * *

><p>"...Mina's hair used to be longer than mine before we started training together," Bethany giggles, her eyes darting to her sister who's suddenly in the doorway in a tunic and breeches, her short locks almost black with damp and looping across her left eye and nose. Seeing curiosity raise Mina's brow, Bethany explains, "I'm telling Anders how you and Carver taught me to fight."<p>

"It's amazing that you even thought to," Anders cradles his chin against his palm, his eyes glowing in admiration as he observes Mina. "It took months with the Wardens before I was entirely comfortable in combat. The Circle should prepare us better...mages are called on it times of war, you'd think they'd want us to know how to cast a primal spell into the thick of battle without freezing our comrades on the spot."

Mina steps in, treading lightly past Leandra to take the seat closest to Anders. Bethany watches them as she settles, Mina's eyes deliberate kept away from his and Anders studying a face he must have memorized by now but still _needs_ to search. His expression is difficult to read, but Bethany knows well enough that no man had ever gazed at _her_ with such intensity. Were Anders not such a tragedy, Bethany would consider her sister incredibly lucky.

"Father deserves most the credit, to be honest," Mina' hands are tucked beneath the table, her shoulders hunched forward. Whatever had been bothering earlier has mostly dissipated. Some tension remains, judging from the lines in the corner of her eyes, but either the bath or Anders' attention in the washroom had cleared her head. "He thought it was important that Carver and I learn to fight with and against mages, and when Bethany was old enough it seemed logical that she learn to fight with and against us." Mina's gaze flits to Bethany, and a knowing smile touches her lips. "Needless to say...Mother did _not_ approve."

"It was bad enough that you and Carver were always hitting at each other," Leandra looks up from her knitting with a pained expression. "Watching all three of you go at it made me feel like a failure as a parent."

"But it was fun!" Mina's eyes brighten.

"Until I set your hair on fire," Bethany's glad to get back to this, because the memory amuses her.

"I did that, too!" Anders leans towards Mina, but directs his smile at Bethany. "The night I was conscripted into the Wardens...we were fighting darkspawn and I decided to help out by casting a spell that would set their weapons on fire. Unfortunately, Br- the Commander had hers positioned up here..."

He holds his arms up in a pose they'd seen Isabela strike several times, one hand close to the back of his head.

"Is that why she conscripted you?" Mina smirks. "As punishment for torching her hair?"

"No," he's gone wistful; it's clear there's something about that night that he wishes he could recapture. "I would have been taken back to the Tower with a templar who wanted me hanged had she...and the king, not pushed for my recruitment." He waves his hand as if to clear the air, forcing himself to give up whatever it was he's missing. "Besides, she looked much better with her hair short...although it didn't work on her the way it works on _you_."

He's back to Mina, and there's no mistaking the flirtatious undertones in _that_ remark. Bethany steals a glance at Leandra, to see her reaction to the odd but handsome apostate boy who can eat his weight in her food and seems to be completely smitten with her daughter...and her _difficult_ daughter, at that.

_She's sad,_ Bethany can feel it from across the room. _She's remembering Father, probably. Carver...definitely. And the days when she had three of us to fret over._

"Hmm..." Mina's clearly flattered by his remark. "Mother was convinced that no man would want me. Between my lack of tits, my nose and my hair...I might as well have changed my name to Wilhelm and given up the ghost."

"I was upset," Leandra's knitting falls to her lap in frustration, although she has to hear the amusement in Mina's voice now. "You could have been ki- hurt," she concludes lamely, having learned years ago to curtail any indication that she realizes just how deadly her daughter's power could be.

"She was convinced that no man would want her," Bethany confirms. "Which is why it's _still_ short..."

"To prove your mother right?" Anders directs this at Mina, his voice oddly intimate. "Or wrong?"

Her eyes go up to meet his, the answer burning clearly within them even as she offers a slow, insouciant smile and, "_Yes_."

On the table, Anders' fingers dig themselves into the rough wood surface and his jaw tenses, the muscle visibly working beneath his stubble-shadowed skin. Bethany can feel him, from where she's sitting, an odd mixture of heat and vapor and she has no idea how her sister is able to hold his gaze, nothing betrayed but the most distant flickering of something close to fear in her eyes.

_What is she afraid of?_ Bethany shivers, feeling suddenly the intruder. She darts another glance to Mother, who has returned to knitting, her head down in concentration. _Either that, or she's avoiding the tension at the table. Which, can't really blame her for _that_._

"Soooo," Mina breaks the silence, her voice momentarily shaky. "My good friend Varric Tethras says there's a crate here for me, straight from Ferelden. Who wants to see if it's anything worthwhile?"

"Ten silver says it's ninety-percent moldy cloth that smells like dog, five percent rubble, three percent dirt and," Anders is still trying to come up with a final figure when a sharp rapping vibrates the door in its frame and sends shots of blue across his skin and from within his eyes.

Bethany has never seen Justice manifest himself. _Is that what Mina fears? _Her silent question is quickly answered by the graceless way she pushes by him, her finger going up in warning.

"I have this," she turns to her sister. "It's probably just Gamlen, in his typical state of too drunk to operate a lock. Still..."

"Yes," Bethany knows this routine. After a quick check to ensure that Anders is Anders, she takes his elbow and pulls them into their small bedroom, the lock clicking into place behind them Mina's sign to answer the door.

Anders stalks away immediately, then whips around, his eyebrows low in frustration. "How many times does a person need to tell her something before she actually listens?"

It's said not only in anger, but with anguish. Bethany's not surprised that Mina would take the threat posed by Justice in stride. She's contrary like that.

"Hundreds, probably," she leans back against the door, head twisted so her ear can hover near a gap in the doorframe as she casually tries to eavesdrop. "I don't know. I usually give up before she does."

He snorts and almost smiles, although the tension remains.

"Do you hear anything?" He takes a step forward just as the handle jiggles.

"All clear," Mina's voice whistles through the cracks and Bethany lets her into the bedroom. Clutched in her hand is a folded piece of parchment. Neither Bethany nor Anders are particularly subtle about their interest in the missive, so she hands it over to her sister for inspection.

It's written hastily, as if the hand was under duress or simply attempting to mask his script should the letter fall into the possession of someone who shouldn't have it.

Which, judging by the vague contents that merely ask for her help in a most precarious matter, is most likely.

"_Proud scion of the Hawke family_?" Bethany wrinkles her nose. Mina's eyes roll up in a silent gesture of _I know, right_? "Who do you think could have sent it?"

"I've no idea. I've met a lot of people in Kirkwall, but I don't know how many would call me...what was it again?" She tugs the corner of the parchment back until she finds the line in question. " '...a person of good character and unusual ability'. But it's not like they have to _mean_ it."

"Wait..." Anders leans close for inspection. "This was written in the Gallows. See how brown the ink is? The Knight-Commander orders it special. There are claims it can be traced, but I think she just uses it to keep track of correspondences that originate from the Circle."

"But I haven't spoken with any Circle mages here...have I?" Confusion shows in a line between her eyes.

"Templars would use it, too," he's clearly not thrilled with the possibility. "And Maker knows you've worked with enough of them."

The recrimination in his comment narrows Mina's eyes, although she neither agrees nor defends herself.

"Well, I guess we'll find out who sent it tomorrow afternoon," she plucks it from Bethany's hand and examines the map drawn in the corner. "My money's on Thrask...Emeric probably thinks I'm a madwoman and the Knight-Captain doesn't seem too keen on by brand of _goodness_."

"I want to go with you," Anders falls to the bed, his eyes darkening. "If this is a trap...but I can't be gone from my clinic all day again."

Mina shrugs and folds the letter neatly into quarters, slipping it into a journal she keeps on a nightstand near her bedroll. "Then don't meet Bartrand with us. I have the maps and the coin; you were just going to be the wayward-Warden icing on my I-can-get-shit-done cake."

"All right," he chuckles at her metaphor. "I can't say I'm looking forward to meeting this guy, anyway. He sounds like an ass."

"Definitely an ass. Actually, calling Bartrand an ass is an insult to the many fine pack animals and bottoms that can also be called such," Mina nods towards the untouched crate that's still propped up in the corner of the bedroom. "Now let's get a look into this thing...it's huge. I hope there's not a _body_ in there."

Indeed, it _is_ large. The men who'd brought it up had tried to milk Bethany for more coin for their efforts, but she'd had only a single silver to give them.

"It looks nailed tight," Anders is examining it with his hands. "Do you have a pry bar for the lid?"

"I was a _smuggler_, Anders," sword already taken from its place by the door, Mina waves him away. The two mages watch as she expertly slips the tip of her weapon into the small crevice where the lid meets the crate proper and begins to work it in, the widening of the blade forcing the gap. Working quickly and methodically, she loosens one side and most of the top before applying force to the handle to push the weapon up and the lid out. It comes off with the creak of rusted nails disengaging from wood and reveals another box inside: a fire damaged trunk that's almost as tall as she is.

Not that damage matters; Bethany can see from Wil's expression that she knows this trunk.

"This was..." her sword falls carelessly from her hands with a clatter of steel on wood, and she immediately begins maneuvering the box to a flat position, Anders jumping in to help before she can crush her bare foot beneath its considerable weight. "Father had this put in storage in Denerim, just before we moved to Lothering. Do you remember, Beth? When Carver tried to hide in it, and the latch was stuck..."

Fingers run along the brass latches even as she says the word, only tonight the give with the lightest touch and the trunk opens without protest to reveal a small armory within.

"Maker's breath!" Mina withdraws the first weapon, a terrifying longsword that appears to have blood burnt into its razor edged blade. The black grip is wrapped in crimson cloth and gives it an air of malevolence. Mina tilts her head to peer down the length of the blade. "This is _amazing_!"

"That was your father's," Leandra is in the doorway, her eyes bright with tears and memory. "He had it on him the first time I met him. Her stocking clad feet carry her silently to the trunk and she peers into it as if she's looking into an open casket. Bethany remembers this version of her mother, from even before Carver's death. When Father had passed, Leandra had spent months in bed, her children convinced that the same illness would _orphan_ them eventually. Instead, she'd just been unable to confront a life without her Malcolm. It's anyone's guess how she'll react now, with so many reminders of him when there haven't been any, besides her own children, for so long.

She sits on the bed, perched at the edge with her knees together, and she remarks on each item as Mina frees it from the trunk. Some of it is merely found treasure- a set of leather armor that Mina immediately coverts was his reward from when he ran with the Crimson Oars. Some of it is deeply personal; Mina unearths an immaculately clean but worn pair of boots and Leandra actually smiles.

"I hated those things...so old, so ugly. I threatened to burn them more than once, and even had a similar pair made just for him after the twins were born. I sold almost everything I had kept with me, from Kirkwall. He wore the new ones whenever he knew I'd see him, but those when he left the house," she takes them when Mina offers and runs her thumb along the steel plated toe box. "You might never have guessed it, Anders, but my Malcolm was a stubborn man."

Anders' face relaxes into a warm smile, his eyes darting quickly to Mina and back. "My _lady_. I am thoroughly shocked by this revelation."

The honorific works wonders, and the rest of the unpacking is a remarkably jovial affair. Mina has stories to tell, especially when she finds a long, navy coat and immediately begins pulling it on.

"You have no idea how much I coveted this when I was younger," her fingers fumble with the buckles, and she's thwarted from comfort by a strange spiky metal thing on one shoulder, but her face is absolutely glowing. "I used to steal it from the wardrobe when Father wasn't home and wear it like a dress. It makes me kinda wish we had someplace to go right now, so I wouldn't have to take it off!"

"I'm certain there's trouble out there, if you want to go find it," Anders leans back on his arms, seemingly charmed by her enthusiasm. "Especially at this hour."

"Andraste's ass, it probably _is_ getting late," Mina reluctantly slips out of the coat, carefully laying it out in the nearly empty trunk.

While she digs out the last of the loot, a journal that gets handed to Leandra and a wrapped parcel that gets set aside, Bello pushes his way into the bedroom, nudging past Bethany and Leandra and settling his damp muzzle on Anders' knee.

Anders is less than thrilled by this show of affection. "I don't know if I care for your drool all over my jacket."

"It smells bad, too," Bethany speaks from experience, but scratches Bello's back, just above his propulsively wagging tail to undo the potential damage done by her criticism. "If you're really lucky, there will be food bits stuck in it."

Distaste shown in the wrinkling of his nose and the way his lower lip nudges out, Anders delicately pushes the mabari's large head away from his leg. For a second, Bello regards him with bright-eyed curiosity. Then he flops back down on the mages thigh, this time with his tongue coming out in appreciation.

"Oh, just pet him already," Mina removes the final parcel from the trunk, a slender object that's shrouded in cheesecloth and close to six feet long.

"But I don't want to. Dogs are," his face screws to the side. "Weirdly open. Cats leave you alone until they want something tangible. Then they...," he waves towards his hair. "I don't know. They sit on your head or curl up on the book you're reading. They don't _drool_."

Bello, along with all three Hawke women, regard him with amused bafflement.

"Worst Fereldan _ever_," Mina bumps his shin with one end of the rod in her hand.

"Well, I'm _not_ Fereldan...my family was from the Anderfels," a shadow crosses his features, dissuading any further questioning in _that_ direction. "And cats are just...better," he sighs, appearing almost bereft. "And I miss Ser Pounce-a-lot."

"Awww," Leandra and Bethany say it in unison. Mina rolls her eyes at _all_ of them before turning her attention to unwrapping what is clearly a mage's staff...a _golden_ mage's staff.

"Andraste's ass!" She swings it around, somehow managing to not take any eyes out as she does so. The end of the stave is incredibly _pointy_. "How did I never notice how _wrong_ this is?"

Bethany catches the staff before it can pass her, examining the figure at the end. It's the head and torso of a woman, a nude with her arms outstretched. While the face and bust are smooth and only hint at certain features, towards the joining of the thighs is the unmistakable suggestion of a cleft that...

"Ew," she pushes it away, and then brings it back to look again. And then pushes it away...for good this time. "Is that _Mother_?"

Bethany can't look either one of her family members in the eye.

"It has to be...," Mina thrusts it towards Leandra for inspection. "It _is_ you, isn't it?"

From the corner of her eye, Bethany can see Leandra's face flush as she covers the figure with her hand. "Of course it's not. It's just a, a _woman_...Malcolm said she represented freedom."

"Confirmation, _Mother_," Wil tugs it back and offers it to Bethany. "It _seems_ powerful...it's giving me a bit of a headache just holding it. And it _has_ to be better than that horrible skull monstrosity you've got now. Also, more subtle."

Bethany scoffs, "I'd hardly call a golden pole with a naked woman on top _subtle_. And...it would be weird for me."

"Have it your way, picky Pete," Mina moves to return it to the trunk when Leandra clears her throat. "Do _you_ want it, Mother?"

"Have you considered the fact that Anders might find it useful? And appropriate, considering..." Leandra hesitates, clearly uncertain how much she's supposed to know about the man sitting beside her on her daughter's bed, her other daughter's dog still claiming his now sodden knee. "Malcolm would have approved, I think."

"Oh," Mina gazes at Anders through her hair, the faintest creep of pink showing at the top of her cheeks. "Would you like to carry around a pointy gold staff with my Mother's...I mean _some woman who represents Freedom's_ tits out?"

"Wilhelmina!" Leandra covers her face, but Bethany catches a lightning quick grin before she does so.

Then, in the truest sign yet that he's come to accept or even appreciate their weird little family dynamic, Anders stands and accepts the staff.

But it comes with a condition.

"I'll give it back...after," he steps over Bello and hesitates in the doorframe, his head near the top. _He's very tall. I never noticed._ "I have poultices to make...even more if there's a chance we'll be heading out soon."

Mina stands, a strange sort of sorrow in her eyes, and follows him, "Do you need anything from me? Supplies, coin...a wardrobe of tiny robes and dresses to make your staff decent?"

"Some elfroot, if you can get it. The stuff from the pit is the best...all the death and despair must make it even more potent," Anders lets himself be led to the door. "So what time will you be heading to the coast tomorrow?"

Mina's response is lost as she escorts the mage downstairs.

"I think I'll go to bed then," Bethany pops her arms up in an exaggerated yawn. Beside her, Mother turns the leather bound journal over in her hands, her face drawn in consideration. It's a marked departure from the pleasantness of just a few moments before.

"Don't go on that expedition, Bethany," Leandra looks up, her dark eyes pleading. "Stay here with me. If something happens...I could lose you both."

It's not the first time Leandra's asked, and she's certain it won't be the last. But Bethany is excited to be going...it's a chance to be a part of a great adventure and to use her magic without fear. Even now she holds back when they fight, always fearful that a templar will come running out of the shadows and not even Mina and their friends will be able to save her.

"But if I stay here, it might be the templars...it's not safe anywhere, Mother. At least with Mina, she can protect me," her breath catches. It sounds so very much like she's accusing her mother of not being able to keep her safe, but Leandra nods in silent understanding.

"Good night, darling," her hand goes to push back at a strand of hair that's fallen across Bethany's face. Leandra does these things for Bethany, and Bethany lets her. It's followed with a cool kiss to the forehead, imparted with no small amount of sadness. "I love you, Bethany, and I...don't want..."

"I love you, too, Mother," Bethany watches her mother leave, the journal close to her chest. "And I know."

Alone, Bethany gets down to her smalls, relieves herself, and extinguishes all but one small candle before crawling into bed, Bello stretching out on his mistress' roll on the floor.

They're both almost asleep before Mina comes in, yanking off clothes and quietly shooing her dog before the door's even closed. Bethany opens one heavy lidded eye and observes a blurry version of her sister.

"What took you so long?" It's stupid, but she's hopeful.

"I apologized to Mother for being a thoughtless ass."

"...and?"

"She told me to leave you behind. I explained that I couldn't."

"Nothing else?"

"No? It's never going to happen, Sunshine."

"Not even in the-"

"_No_," she's resigned. "Now can't you get involved in a hopeless and complex _thing_ with one of our friends, so _I_ can be entertained for awhile?"

Bethany blinks back the first face that comes to mind, startled by the flush that arrives with it. "Point taken. Although...you can't blame me for assuming. You were much happier after your bath."

"Anders isn't the only one who could take care of that for me, you know." Bethany can practically hear the wicked smile. "I have _hands_. And an _imagination_."

"Imagin...? Oh. I _hate_ you."

Mina yawns. "Just trying to ruin your sleep."

"You're horrible."

"Hmmm. Yes. But you love me anyway."

"Despite my better judgment," sleep comes at her suddenly and she's nearly given in. "But only because you let me have the bed."

* * *

><p><strong>Note from SF:<strong> So...those Hawkes, eh? Also Bad Mood Wil out of nowhere...I had no idea until I got to the end of her confrontation with Fenris. Hopefully the context is clear enough.

And, question...I'm starting to plot out Act 2 a little. It will be very different in terms of tone and content and I'm considering splitting it off into its own story (and doing the same with Act 3). I'm curious if anybody has any thoughts on how that would or wouldn't work, from a reader's perspective.


	20. Accomplishment

"This place looks different during the day," Wil, suddenly the one who feels vulnerable, stays close to her sister as they traverse through the wide main hall of the Hightown chantry. "Even tackier, if that's possible. Although...a refreshing lack of corpses."

Bethany gives her a meaningful glare, forcing Wil to re-examine the likelihood that one of them might be adopted, or a changeling. They've lived together their entire lives, yet Bethany can find a peace in the chant that has always eluded Wil. Perhaps it was Malcolm's attitude that shaped Wil's cynicism, and now it's her own unwillingness to seek comfort in words that have been twisted to condemn the ones she loves that keeps her away.

Not that it's entirely her father's fault...even if she'd been a devout child, at some point she'd have noticed how Bethany's faith has worsened her struggle to come to terms with both her magic and the nature of her freedom, being as it is an affront to the order of the Chantry and, thus, _another_ mark against her. Wil refuses to feel guilty for much, and she's definitely not going to fret about anyone who'd tell her to turn against her own family because of something that not a soul could predict nor do any humane thing about.

So Wil's irreverent at the best of times, borderline sacrilegious most. Bethany, meanwhile, knows the Chant by heart, and she knows which of the robed women in the atrium get polite smiles, and which get tiny, dutiful nods of respect. She knows where to stop ahead of the altar so she's not entering a place meant only for those who have taken vows, and she knows where confessionals are located.

And _not_ because they made perfect hiding spots for impromptu kisses and other, fumbly, lust-fueled endeavors.

"Please excuse me, sister," Bethany is confident here and the blonde priest to whom she speaks offers both Hawkes a false but pretty smile that fixes itself for the duration of their conversation.

_Creepy_, Wil thinks. Her attention wanders while Bethany asks the clergy about the man they'd come to see. Wandering pays off, as Bethany's about to get an earful of chantry horseshit, and Wil's spotted their target on the mezzanine, lounging against the railing and observing the altar below.

"I've found him...I think." She leaves without securing her sister's presence and isn't surprised when Bethany stays behind to be polite and continue the conversation between herself and the priest.

"Does she belong to you?" The man against the railing asks as Wil approaches. He's tall, his skin slightly darker than her own and his hair a shade of auburn she hasn't seen on many people since they'd left Ferelden. Most striking are his sky colored eyes. They're..._bright_, and lend him a strangely cheerful appearance.

If she's being honest,_ he's _bright. His armor is glossy white trimmed in gold and it reflects the sunlight that streams in through the windows over the altar, even up here where it's kept dim for those who come for contemplation and solitude.

"_Belong_ to me?" Wil leans forward and regards the two women below, Bethany talking animatedly now.

"Does that word choice offend you?" He smiles, his teeth doing nothing to undermine her impression that he might be the cleanest person she's ever met. "If so, I apologize. I only meant that you seem watchful...not possessive. Even when you're the one who's ill at ease."

It's assumptive, to say the least. But also true.

"Is it that obvious?" Pushing up from the wall, she darts her away eyes from his and lands on the precise spot where Anders had killed Karl...with her support. Perspective is gained; the handsome man in the shiny armor is a much better point of focus. _Less tragic._ "It's true that I don't come here often. Well, not when there are chantry folk about. I'm more into clandestine midnight meetings and shady dealings. That sort of thing."

His eyes widen, and Wil realizes that she'd be better off _not_ joking about using the chantry for _anything_, especially considering the number of people she's participated in killing here.

"Kidding!" she smiles as charmingly as she can, in the hopes that it's enough. "I am...kidding. It's a thing I do."

Relief floods his face and comes out as laughter.

"I'm glad to hear it," his eyes are positively aglow. "So you _never_ attend services?"

It's gentle curiosity, and not condemnation.

"Oh, no," she cringes. "I could be forced to when we lived in Ferelden, but I saw some purpose for it then. In Kirkwall...," she trails off, fairly certain that she shouldn't mention how her possessed friend in the undercity puts the chantry's non-existent charity for her fellow refugees to shame. "My sister comes, though. She prays for me."

He's been watching her with genuine interest, her response and what she omits clearly of some importance to him.

"Does she pray on your behalf, or does she ask the Maker to watch over and guide you, that you might arrive at Him someday on your own?"

Assumptive again. It sends one of her eyebrows up in suspicion. "If he's guiding me...than am I really arriving on my own? And wouldn't that be a miracle, considering...well. _You know_."

_That whole turned his back on us episode._ She doesn't say it. She has serious doubts that there's anything about _her_ that would interest any deity enough to want to start paying attention after a millennia of noted apathy.

"We're having this discussion, and I don't even know your name," he smiles indulgently, as if he can read her thoughts and he wants her to know that _he_ cares. "Although I realize this goes both ways, so I'll introduce myself. My name is Sebastian Vael, and I am the Prince of Starkhaven," his eyes gleam. "Although Her Grace would probably prefer that I introduce myself as a brother in the chantry."

Wil ignores the brother in the chantry part, although it explains a lot. She's merely glad to know that she has the right man. "Sebastian Vael? So...will anyone smite me if I admit that I killed the men that went after your family?"

"Excuse me?" This time his entire face registers shock. "I...you mean my posting on the Chanter's Board was allowed to stay? I had no idea. And _you_ kill- took care of them?"

"Yeah," Wil glances away, uncertain why she feels suddenly and vaguely ashamed. _He's_ the one who'd ask that the mercenaries be eliminated. He couldn't very well judge her for doing what he wanted done, could he? And what would it matter? "_Also_ something I do."

"I...see," he exhales. "You have my eternal gratitude, serah. My parents might be able to rest easily in their graves now, thanks to you. It is...comforting. And now those assassins are no longer a danger to me."

It seems an interesting perspective for a chantry brother to have. There are no overt signs of bloodthirsty need, but having the entire group of mercenaries disposed of blurs the line between justice and vengeance. _Never mind the blatant self-preservation._

"Do you know who sent them...who could be behind the slaughter?" While she asks, her hand slips into her pocket. Since she'd relinquished Flemeth's amulet, the amethyst locket she'd found at Sundermount has taken its spot at her hip. She'll miss it. "Also...I thought you might want this..."

Fingers trembling in a mixture of sorrow and relief, Sebastian touches the locket as it sways from her fingers.

"Meghan," the corners of his mouth turn down. "She was a beautiful young woman, who posed no threat to any usurper. I...this only strengthens my resolve to find who is behind this." His hand falls to his side before finding his belt to free a small leather pouch that he then offers to Wil. "Here is what I have for now. Once I have reclaimed my lands, you will be royally rewarded."

_Ooooh_. She won't be holding her breath.

"And I think you should keep the locket," Sebastian scoops it up to press into her palm, his fingers calloused and warm against her own as they linger several seconds beyond what is strictly necessary. "Wear it if you want, or sell it and do good."

"I don't know if you'd approve of what I consider doing good." Even she can admit that there's a tenuous link between a well-fed apostate and the happy refugees that depend on him. "But thank you." Then, although she doubts it matters much at this point, "The name's Hawke. Wilhelmina."

Sebastian relaxes, going back to lean against the railing. "Yes. It suits you. Strong...almost noble," he returns upright. "I'm glad that we met, Wilhelmina Hawke. You've helped me more than you can possibly know, and I'd be happy to return the favor one day. Unfortunately now I must seek an audience with the Viscount. Starkhaven _needs_ allies." He inclines his head forward in a small show of respect before his face blooms into a wide smile. "Maker watch over you, Serah Hawke. I hope to see you here again someday, and not merely because I'm supposed to."

With powerful and confident strides, Sebastian leaves her alone on the mezzanine, looking down over the main hall that now contains only the blonde priest.

"Mina?" Bethany's beside her now and they both follow Sebastian's progress out of the chantry, although one of them watches with far more undisguised interest. "Was _that_ him? He looked princely enough...and he was smiling!"

"That was him," Wil frowns. "His armor was out of control. Also...I think he might have been flirting with me?"

Beth giggles. "That would be something, wouldn't it? Just don't tell Mother!"

"Maker!" Wil begins towards the stairs. "Could you imagine what she'd say?"

"There was a handsome prince indebted to you, Wilhelmina, and you didn't ask for his hand in marriage?" Bethany has on her best Disappointed Leandra Face. "Instead you smarted off and now you'll _never_ find a suitable husband."

"I actually handled myself pretty well," Wil's just as surprised as her sister. "Aside from joking that I use the chantry for illicit activities...it was a remarkably adult interaction."

"Maybe we should tell the Grand Cleric that a miracle happened here today," Bethany sasses.

"Let's keep the Grand Cleric out of this, and pray that my streak continues through Bartrand," Wil makes a disgusted face. "All I need to do is ruin this for us when we're so close, especially after everything Varric has done to get us this opportunity in the first place. I think even _his_ generosity has its limits."

* * *

><p>Anders' hands smell like his poultices, earth and astringent and honeysuckle. Wil's mentioned his scent before, and it's almost entirely because of the time he spends mixing batches for her and his clinic.<p>

He also smells like the Fade, Justice having recently asserted himself in the middle of a...daydream...that was mild at best. And innocent. _Those could have been _anyone's_ hands..._

_They weren't anyone's hands._

And they hadn't been doing _anything_, the hands that could have been _anyone's_ hands. The small shiver that traces along his spine like a gentle fingertip tells a different story, but he forces himself to ignore what he can't bring himself to confront. Instead, he focuses on corking and cleaning the dozens of vials and jars that he's spent the morning filling. These will be left behind for Lirene, who's agreed to dispense them along with other remedies while he's gone.

There's so much to be done before he leaves, but he's having trouble focusing on anything. Between Justice pulling him to sit and finalize a final _final_ draft of his appeal to the Viscount to intervene in Knight-Commander Meredith's recent revision of the Circle's outreach policy and...hands, he doesn't think he can accomplish anything besides mindless tasks like making poultices.

_We have so much more we could be doing._

"I know," Anders murmurs, reassuring himself as much as Justice. "But this afternoon..."

He's not certain what he's expecting today. Wil suspects that the note she'd received the night before is a plea from Ser Thrask, the templar who'd been trying to help Feynriel. Although Anders has not met the man, Wil seems to consider him trustworthy enough.

_Why leave these things to her discretion?_

Anders sighs, digging his fingers into his forehead. Wil could _literally_ stroll in here with a notarized edict from the Divine herself declaring all mages in Thedas free and Justice would probably go off and do the spirit equivalent of pout in a corner. Even the few times she'd managed to evoke something approaching respect from Justice had been undermined by what Justice sees as her ultimate, and self-interested, goal of wealth and status.

But that's not _all_ she wants. Anders _knows_, but can't get it through. No matter what he tries, and he's even written down all the ways that she's proven herself to have the best interest of mages at heart, Justice considers her a slippery distraction. An annoyance at best, outright manipulative at worst, and there seems to be nothing that she nor Anders can do to sway him from his narrow view.

_It matters not, Anders. _She_ matters not. There is a world...there are children on the verge of magical discovery, of being taken from loving arms and placed in cold, confining steel and stone._

_You're using my memories against me,_ Anders accuses in silence, although there is no real heat behind it. Now is not the time to get angry at his inability to hide from his past, as he can hear them coming, Varric's low voice and Bethany's unmistakable giggle. _If Wil's taking her sister with us, then I don't think Thrask is a threat._

_You'll find out soon enough. _

"Anders!" From the flush of Wil's cheeks and the way she says his name like she's never _been_ happier to know someone with a name, their meeting with Bartrand had gone well. "Guess who just accomplished something of minor import?"

"I'm guessing..." Anders hesitates as she stops close to him. As always, it's too close yet not close enough. _A paradox of proximity_. "Uncle Gamlen."

"Ha!" Wil knocks the back of her hand against his shoulder. "I said minor, not _miniscule_."

"You almost impressed my brother, Hawke. I think that earns you a step or two above _minor_," Varric is relief, everything about him a little bit loose now that this final barricade has been removed.

"I don't think _I_ was the one who impressed him," she smirks at Anders. "You weren't even there, and you stole the show." Her voice lowers to gruffness and her accent slips into one similar to Varric's, "By my ancestors...where did you find these?...Look at all those entrances...who did you have to blow?"

Anders fights to keep his blood where it belongs, and Bethany picks up where her sister left off, oblivious to his struggle.

"The best part is what Mina told him," Bethany adjusts her face to appear as aloof yet self-possessed as Wil and manages to nail her inflection perfectly... "A _wizard_ did it."

"Actually," Varric interjects before Anders can praise her for saying he exact right thing. "The _best_ part was that he was too excited to do anything but welcome her to the expedition. No suspicions, or accusations. Just...Andraste's ass, now I'm starting to doubt that was even really Bartrand."

"He was _still_ a jerk. So it's safe to assume it was Bartrand...Thedas wouldn't be able to handle two of him," Wil demurs the flattery with a joke and a genuine flush of embarrassment. "And it's not a huge deal. I made friends and saved money. Not exactly the trickiest."

"Says the girl whose only friends before were her brother and sister," Bethany pokes lightly, but Anders can see the flash of discomfort that ignites in Wil's eyes. She catches him watching and that only makes it worse, her gaze diving to the floor as Bethany nudges Varric's shoulder so that they can share some private joke.

"Fine then. I'll claim more than I actually accomplished," her smile when she looks up is tighter than he's ever seen, and it's a reminder of the evening before, when she'd been so terse, so intensely frustrated and jagged. "I demand the Hanged Man's best once we get back tonight..." she cuts to Varric, a sly expression overtaking the tension. "And again before we leave...we might as well indulge. Something tells me there aren't too many taverns in the ruined Deep Roads."

Anders bites back an involuntary rise in bile. _The Deep Roads_. It brings to mind sharp sounds in the darkness, shrill cries cutting their way from billowing heated mists that reeked of refuse and decay and ancient horribleness. His first journey down had been in Kal'Hirol, where they'd found Sigrun fighting for her life and an assortment of monstrosities that made the Void seem an endearing and _cuddly_ place to spend an afterlife.

_Andraste's ass. _Brood_mothers._ The Mother herself had put him off breasts for...well, the duration of the walk back to the Keep. So not _that_ long, but still a personal record. And he'd not been so much enthused to see the ones that brought him back as he was happy to be holding the person to whom they belonged...

...who'd kept him sane that time, in Kal'Hirol. The gentle pressure of her hand on his elbow had anchored him, her tales of survival in worse places and awesome fearlessness enough to keep him from slipping into panic when the tunnels they crept down would narrow and feel for all the world like a noose tightening around his own neck.

Inside him, Justice settles and it feels like contentment for the way Anders' blood stirs for the _right_ woman.

In front of him Wil is alone and watching, eyebrows up in bewilderment and concern that she doesn't quite know how to act upon.

"You all right?" From her immediate wince, she realizes it's an idiotic question to ask a man who's newly coated in a sheen of nervous sweat.

"Yes," he lies, trying in vain to squelch the murmurings of remorse that have somehow made their way past Justice. The existence of guilt in this situation is troubling and doesn't he have enough troubling him already? _Yes. Yes I do._ "I take it they're ready to go?"

She looks to the doorway of the clinic, where Bethany's turned the tables and is enthusiastically regaling Varric. Sensing their attention, she leans into the clinic, raven hair tumbling around her white shoulders, eyes bright. "I'm telling Varric about the handsome prince."

Wil gives her head a few quick shakes to dissuade her sister.

"What handsome prince?" Anders' curiosity isn't _all_ innocent, but it is a nice distraction. Although from Bethany's mischievous smile, it's supposed to serve an entirely different purpose.

"Sebastian Vael...he's the one who wanted all those mercenaries dead," Wil's mouth twists halfway through the explanation. "He's also a brother. Or he was _before_ his family was killed."

"He seemed quite taken by Mina," Bethany's eyes meet his and there's a remarkable amount of knowing in them.

"Not really," Wil sighs. "Maybe a little. In retrospect, I think he was trying to lure me to the Maker and not, you know, into his _pants_."

"I don't think it's supposed to be so difficult to figure out which of those he wants," Anders responds with a forced laugh. "Although a prince slash chantry brother might just be confused on his approach."

"But, if I might flaunt my knowledge of perverse activities one might get up to in a chantry," Wil straightens her shoulders and assumes an arch scholar's tone. "There are so many practices, symbols and rituals that could cause confusion. Kneeling to render praise has _several_ interpretations, and I won't even get into swords of mercy and dark, secretive boxes where anonymous exchanges of sin and punishment are made away from the prying or judgmental eyes of others."

"Holy Maker, Hawke," Varric sags in resignation that no matter how good she's proving at getting things done, she's still..._off_. "Let's get out of here before we draw any unwanted attention. Of the smiting variety."

Wil shrugs and follows behind the dwarf, pausing to help Anders lock up the clinic. "If I was ever going to be smitten? smote? it would have happened already," she gives him a significant look. "Trust me on this, Tethras."

"You never know. It might be accruing over time," he contemplates. "You're just going along until one day you make a joke about having a miter fetish and, next thing you know, _zot!_ straight from the sky. From what I've heard, smitings don't discriminate between those who deserve them and handsome dwarves who don't even believe in the Maker."

"Fine, fine," Wil rolls her eyes in mock exasperation and dryly agrees. "Then I'll keep the details of my miter fetish to myself, lest I end up getting you accidentally struck down."

"Such a good person, Wil," Anders jokes. It earns him a strained and crooked smile.

"I'm just trying to do the right thing," it comes with an almost amusing amount of forced sincerity. "Remember that later if it _does_ turn out to be Thrask who sent that letter."

_Indiscriminately helping templars...they are not the ones in need of her support._

"Of course," Anders ignores Justice and smiles because, joke or not, he believes what he said to be true.

Now if only Justice could get over himself...and _her_...to accept it.

* * *

><p>It's close.<p>

At some point after Anders jumps in between the red-haired man and Wil to assert that they will absolutely _not_ go in and kill _any_ mages on behalf of the _templars_, which garners him a startled expression from Thrask and something closer to _what kind of monster do you think I am?_ from the widening of Wil's green eyes, she states that she is going to help the escaped mages from Starkhaven.

_If she can do this, they can no longer be traced with their phylacteries...they can be examples of what well-trained mages can be when allowed freedom._

_Yes_, Anders agrees, his attention still on her and a small smile holding his lips. While most people wouldn't hear _I don't want this to turn into a massacre_ and be anything more than _Oh, good. Non-psychopath confirmed_, coming from her and in _this_ situation is...

"Good luck, my friend," Thrask speaks to Wil, but he's staring at Anders and the mage is on the verge of giving in to the slow rise of paranoia when he realizes _why _he's staring..._I am still smiling like a lovestruck fool._

"We don't have long," Wil leads the way into the cavern, making certain that Bethany is close behind. Varric and Anders remain in the rear in case Ser Kerras, the templar Thrask has warned them against, arrives sooner than anticipated. Although it comes after a great deal of hesitation, Wil agrees that Kerras can be eliminated should he try to confront them down here. "Hopefully it doesn't come to that...if nothing else, Meredith might pin the blame on the Starkhaven mages and redouble her efforts to capture them."

"And she wouldn't even take them," Anders snarls, every scrap of relief he'd felt moments earlier now pulled away to expose the black pulse of anger within him. "They'd be tranquiled or ordered executed where they're found...templars can get away with entrapping and killing mages," he flashes back to a certain templar who'd attempted both on him, Rylock with her eyes like dark fire boring accusations into his soul. "Mages aren't even granted the right of self-defense."

Wil turns as if to respond, but a snap interrupts their fledgling debate as they abandon talk for drawn weapons. Besides Anders the soft whirr of Bianca is a strangely reassuring sound, and the surge of magic that Anders casts to imbue the crossbow, and Wil's blade, seems to bolster the dwarf. Ahead of the two men, the Hawke sisters are similarly poised- Wil's sword angled back at the ready and Bethany's fingers tipped in subtle flame.

Although he knows Wil favors having someone fighting alongside her, Fenris her preferred partner as he can distract and directly engage large numbers of opponents, Anders has come to like this configuration in particular. In the Wardens, he'd gotten used to fighting alongside an archer and although Varric lacks Nathaniel's physical presence, his eyes and sense of battle placement are impeccable. He and the dwarf have become accustomed to each other's fighting style and spend most of their time back to back in the heat of things, Varric spotting while Anders casts.

As for Wil and Bethany...it's almost distracting if he lets it be. Never is the difference between the two women more apparent than it is when they're surrounded by enemies, and yet the work together brilliantly. Wil throws herself into a fight, her long, athletic frame gracefully insinuating itself, as it is now amongst a horde of skeletal archers. At close range, there's not much that they can do to her, and she manages to topple most of them with one controlled swing on her blade.

"I've got it, Mina!" Bethany is at her usual guarded position at the edge of the fight, but closer than Anders or Varric. After pausing long enough for Wil to dive away from the fallen archers, she hurls flame towards the center of their cluster.

Wil does not flinch as the fire rushes by her head, nor does she cower when Bethany begins raining more fire down on a group of shambling corpses. Instead she deftly avoids injury, dancing amidst the flickering orange in her drive to attack the apostate responsible for the necromancy around them.

Anders holds his breath, watching the confrontation between Wil and the maleficar, who is attempting to summon another demon.

_Hurry, Wil._ If she can get to him before the spell is finished, the fight should not be a difficult one. He's wearing nothing but his Circle robes and Anders senses no other defensive spells around him. _Come on..._

She's not quite made it when the mage stops summoning and throws his hands out towards her, loosing a wave of energy that shows itself as a growing edge of distortion. It staggers Wil, but only for a second.

The mage...clearly _not_ anticipating such a quick recovery. He's barely able to raise his hand to cast another spell when her blade finds his stomach and buries itself to the hilt. It's gruesome but effective, the apostate collapsing as life drains out of him. Then, in a move Anders doesn't expect, Wil yanks the sword clean and brings it back down to cleave the man's head from his shoulders, turning away from his corpse before it's completely fallen.

"What was _that_ for?" Bethany's hands are curled against her stomach, her chest heaving from adrenaline. "Is decapitation necessary?"

Wil shrugs and examines her gore covered weapon. "My guess is that we're going to encounter a few more blood mages as we go...I'd rather they not be able to call on their fallen mates," she hesitates, eyes going up in thought. "That makes sense, right? It was sort of a spur of the moment decision."

"You better hope that's enough to stop them," Varric's entire face is twisted in disgust. "Because if it's not? _Disgusting_."

"It _should_ work," Anders' head is now throbbing. This situation is worse than he'd anticipated. "These poor fools are _summoning the dead_. Their desperation...we _can't_ send them back to the Circle, Wil. If that Ser Kerras is half as bad as Thrask says..."

"They're also practicing blood magic, and attacking us," frowning, she kicks at the smoldering remains of a reanimated corpse. "I need to talk to _someone_ before I can decide anything. Just..." she looks beyond Anders in the most disconcerting way. "Just know what I _want_ to happen."

_She's talking to Justice._ His tongue darts out to moisten dry lips and his thoughts grow momentarily chaotic before calming to a simple... _our goal is their freedom_.

It repeats as they traverse through the cavern, encountering two more blood mages and defeating them and their dead easily.

It repeats when they encounter a nervous young mage who looks barely Harrowed, his narrow shoulders poking through the torn fabric of his robes. Anders is not surprised to hear that there is one apostate leading and urging the use of blood magic, but he _is_ slightly taken aback at the boy's insistence that he himself be returned to the templars.

_Why would he _want_ to return?_

Anders _knows_ why. If he'd not been abused, or been refused meals or a bed or access to a hot bath, the Circle is like a home...certainly better than a cave full of madmen and corpses. He _knows_, but he's not happy when Wil points the boy to the mouth of the cavern, directing him so that he can turn himself over to Thrask.

"It was his choice," she doesn't even need to see Anders' expression.

"Yes, but is it really a choice when he has no idea what true freedom is?" Anders falls into step beside her. "Being trapped in a cave with maleficar is not the only other option besides the Circle."

"But I can't promise that he'll ever be able to do any better...that he won't be hunted, or he won't be turned over or enslaved. He's not comfortable out here and, frankly, he sticks out like a busted thumb," Wil glances over, frustration clear in her eyes. "Not everyone thrives in the world, Anders. I can't force him to go back to someone who scares him, or stay with us and risk getting eaten in here or captured out there. At least Thrask will show him mercy."

"You actually believe that?" It's barely a question, although it's not _quite_ an accusation, either. His voice is kept low as they approach a series of makeshift bunk rooms left behind from when this was a mining facility. Murmurs are echoing from the high stone ceilings in the chamber ahead of them, which means they're approaching the apostate camp proper.

"Of course I believe that," Wil's face is near his own...he can see the subtle web texture of her eyes and also a ghost of confusion, despite her certainty. "Why else would he have called on _me_ to help him?"

It's said with self-mocking arrogance, but for Anders it only justifies an unbidden swell of admiration. Justice does _not_ resist this time.

_Nothing_ resists this time, and it's only Wil moving slowly forward, her head lowered and her eyes restlessly scanning the cavern that prevents him from...

_I sense power beyond a mortal's._

Anders grabs her elbow and gestures for Varric and Bethany to halt behind them.

"Demon," he mouths, waiting for Wil to nod before he releases her arm only to watch helplessly as she straightens up and clatters down a series of wooden steps, whatever advantage they might have possessed ruined as she does so.

_What are you _doing_, Wil? _He hurries to catch up with her, barely able to stop as they round a corner and see..._him_.

It _is_ a him, the beard gives that one away. Beneath the wild blond growth is a world-beaten face, mottled crepe skin that clings to the bones of his skull like lantern paper to a wire frame. Pale eyes glow with hatred and something altogether unearthly, narrow slits of verve in an otherwise soulless visage.

"Templars," he rasps, twitching as he regards them all in turn. "The templars have come to take us back to the Circle!"

Despite the fact that none of them are, in fact, templars. Or even _dressed_ like templars.

One of his fellow mages is trying to make him see this fact, a young woman who speaks to him in desperate yet intimate tones.

"These are not templars, Decimus," she shoots Wil a wildly beseeching look. "Please...do not-"

"I care not what shield they cower behind...only that they will fall," his hands are engulfed in crimson mist and he raises them in a gesture that causes the shadows edging the cavern to come alive with corpses.

"I'm starting to think they chose this cave on purpose," Anders edges back towards Varric, Bethany moving closer to Wil.

Wil has only one intent, and that is to kill this Decimus. Once _he's_ fallen, whatever enchantment he's cast should broken. As it is now, Anders counts quickly, there are close to fifty skeletal beings staggering from the back of the cave, and probably more in the passages that branch off of the main room.

Varric and Bethany keep the dead at a distance while Anders throws lightning at two apostates who have joined the fray. With the presence of whatever demon it is powering Decimus, Justice is pushing hard for control of Anders.

_Work through me_, Anders finishes the mages with two precise bolts from his staff and he can feel his muscles tense with resistance and then...something like buoyancy. Every movement is quicker, sharper. When a skeleton appears at his elbow, he reacts immediately to snap his staff against its throat, knocking its skull loose from its spine with one solid blow. Always before when Justice would manifest himself, Anders was all but lost within him. _Now_ they feel like one being of unwordly strength, power and-

"Blondie...something's wrong!" The crack of Varric's voice over the fray breaks him from his _what was I thinking?_ His eyes fly to Hawke because that's the only reason why Varric would be so panicked, and he sees her, caught and twitching in a cocoon of red-tinged light. Her sword has fallen from her hand, her head is thrown back in agony, neck muscles corded and straining through tan skin, and he even at a distance he can see her chest shuddering as it struggles to draw breath.

_Bastard_. Decimus' hands are locked together; Anders can see him gathering every last scrap of his energy to use against Wil. Whatever he does next will likely be gruesome and _fatal_.

"No," he cries brokenly, his own mana coalescing at his finger tips. It's been so long since he's used this particular spell, one that he's always hated because of the way it turns magic against its possessor. But it has its _practical_ applications, mostly against darkspawn emissaries and certain Fade spirits. And _fucking_ maleficar.

With an forceful mental shove, he allows his mana to _blast_ out of him, pouring from his hands. His focus is so precise that he doesn't worry about catching any of the other apostates with it. Only Decimus matters, and only Decimus is sent staggering back, arms flailing, before he goes completely rigid. For a long second, his eyes flicker violet and from his mouth plumes a matching wisp. Finally, he collapses and the cavern echoes with the clatter of bones falling to stone as every spell and corpse fueled by his blood is simultaneously depowered.

_Wil_ collapses before Anders can reach her. She's able to remain on her hands and knees, albeit unsteadily. He can tell by the way her body spasms that there's internal damage and she does not resist him when he joins her on the cavern floor and pulls her closer.

"Here, turn over," his hands are searching along her abdomen, seeking specific injuries. He doesn't need to know in order to heal her, but it makes the healing more efficient. What comes back is..._nothing_. She gasps and he feels pain darting along his skin almost like heat rash but more intense. "Andraste's..._Wil_."

"What?" Her back arches suddenly and this time it comes with a wave of agony that knots his stomach and nearly causes him to lose his meager breakfast.

"Dammit," he begins healing madly, praying that it will get past whatever's preventing him from feeling her injuries. Were this purposeful, she would know how to slip back into a place where her body reacted normally to his magic. But now...the discomfort intensifies and Wil grits her teeth to hold back a cry. That's when his thoughts grow faint and weakness over-

"Come on, Anders!" Wil's commanding _him_ now, her arms tight around his shoulders and her mouth next to his ear. He has no idea how long he's been unconscious, but he _does_ know that his mouth tastes like a terrible mixture of elfroot and honeysuckle and his chin is stiff from where the concoction was forced past non-compliant lips. "Maker's breath," it's an almost sob of relief as she continues to cling to him. "I thought I'd killed you and-"

She cannot finish...Anders raises one hand to fumble against her cheek in reassurance, and for a moment things feel strangely right. Strangely, considering she _had_ nearly killed him and is completely fine because of it.

"I'll survive," he struggles to an upright position, and misses the press of her chest against his back when he does so. "Although...you owe me at least one drink, Hawke."

He half turns so he can see the relieved grin that unfurls across her face, despite the concern that remains etched between her eyes. "I thought Justice didn't allow such _indulgences_."

"As long as I don't get drunk, he shouldn't protest _too_ much," his strength is returning and he's able to make it to his feet unaided, Wil coming up beside him. "Although..."

"You killed him," the accusation cuts across the cavern to where Anders and Wil are standing, Bethany and Varric nearby. It comes from the same pretty young woman who'd try to keep the man from turning against them in the first place. "Oh, Decimus," she croons to his body. "You should have listened to me, love." She lowers him to the ground, gently, before her mood turns back to anger and it brings her stalking forward, blue eyes locked on Anders. "_You_...you are one of _us_ but you wear no mark of any Circle. How is it that you side against other apostates?"

He bristles at this. "Maybe your _lover_ should have tried saying _hello_. We're friendlier than you think."

The woman frowns, her gaze going back to Decimus' body. "He gave us the courage to face the templars. Without him, we would be prisoners still."

Wil is even less sympathetic than Anders, if the scowl that's twisting her mouth is any indication. "Well, if he taught you any of his secrets, you _could_ have him up and walking in no time. Then you can be reunited with your beloved...for as long as you can stand the _smell_."

Anders expects anger at this, but the apostate seems almost apologetic. "I warned him. I told him, once he marked himself as a blood mage, that was all anyone would see...but, I swear to you. I have had no truck with demons...none of us have. Please, serah. We only want our freedom. Without your help, the templars will execute us _all_ for Decimus's crimes."

_Sigh_. Her head tilts forward and Anders can see the wheels turning. Wil wants to give them freedom, but it's clear she's not entirely convinced of their innocence. While he can't blame her for doubt, she has to see that it's only the templars pressing after them that drove most of them to use blood magic in the first place.

"You know what?" Her eyes come up, resolve hardened. "I don't have enough people trying to kill me, already. I might as well add all the templars in Kirkwall."

"_Mina_," Bethany cautions under her breath, but the apostate woman is already accepted Wil's offer, if it can be called that, and is scheming.

"We must first throw off pursuit," she paces a few steps and then returns, her lips dangerously curved. Along with the faded tattoo gracing her cheek, it makes her look almost fearsome. "There is a templar guarding the cavern entrance. He needs to be eliminated, otherwise he'll order us captured."

Anders is caught up in the idea, or rather _Justice_ thinks it's a sound strategy. "Thrask is still a templar, Wil. He'll more than likely order them taken in. And she's right when she says they'll all be executed for the actions of a few. Better the death of one templar than so many innocents, don't you think?"

He asks cautiously, trying to rationalize this course of action the best he can. From the way Wil's eyes darken, he's failed.

"I can't kill a man because of what he _might_ do, especially since he's here to_ prevent a massacre_," her lips press together in thought, and she turns her gaze onto the apostate woman, who seems only a few seconds from making a smart comment about Wil's _true_ priorities.

_She is not with the mages._

"Other templars have been killed down here...yes?" Wil asks and the apostate nods, pointing to a pile of armor just beyond Decimus' corpse. "Excellent. All right," she strides ahead. "Leave it to me. By the time _I'm_ done, these templars will swear the sky is green."

They watch as Wil discards her old armor and replaces it with chantry issue, throwing the templar garments on over her hose. The mage shakes her head. "Your confidence _almost_ makes me believe you. But I spent two weeks traveling with these templars. They strike first and think after. They are far easier to kill than to fool."

"_Killing Thrask is not an option_," _this_ is an absolute statement. "If he can't be convinced, then we'll find another way."

The mage's eyes narrow in disagreement, but she nods her acquiescence. "I think we're ready to head up, serah."

Wil snaps a gauntlet into place. The armor is slightly too large for her, but not unreasonably so. It also doesn't sit well with Anders or Justice to see her in it.

"Follow me and stay together," Wil points to the front of the cavern. "Who knows what we'll encounter on our way back, and I don't want to lose _anyone_ else."

She's looking at Anders when she says it and he feels somewhat guilty for being too eager in his support of killing Thrask.

_He is a templar._

_But a merciful man_, Anders can't believe he manages to think it.

"You look...confused," Wil falls in beside him. "It's the armor, isn't it?"

"Something like that," he mumbles and looks away.

* * *

><p>Light breaks the darkness, and Wil orders the apostates to stay in the main room just inside the cave entrance. The woman leading them, Grace, will wait by the square door cut in the stone for a signal to come out, or retreat.<p>

Anders and Bethany position themselves in the shadowed edge of the mouth. From here, they'll listen for any signs of struggle. Wil's confident that everything will turn out fine, but she's not about to risk their safety if it turns out that Kerras has brought a small army with him, or can't be placated.

Once the mages are settled, Varric and Wil continue out into the sunlight where a muffled argument is taking place. Anders recognizes Thrask's voice, and he assumes the higher pitched of the others belongs to the mage they'd sent ahead on their way through the cavern.

"Who is _this_?" It's a vicious sort of growl, no doubt aimed at Wil. Anders feels Bethany tense beside him at its roughness. _Kerras is a friend of Meredith's...definitely a threat._

"_Pardon_?" They can barely see the top of Wil's head, but her voice echoing back to them rings with unearned authority. "Tethras...tell them who we are."

Varric's throat clears, and he launches smoothly into a lie that even Anders can _almost_ believe. "I'm astonished Ser Thrask didn't mention that Ser Hawke, knight-lieutenant of the Order in Ferelden, was here at the Knight-Commander's _personal_ invitation."

"Uh...," and Thrask might ruin it all. "Yes. I was just about to tell him."

Varric snorts contemptuously. "We've completed our investigation of the mages in those caverns, Ser Kerras. There is no one left inside."

"Really?" Kerras is skeptical. "They're all..._dead_."

"Actually," Wil interjects smoothly. "One of them couldn't handle us and ran out the back. You should go after him."

_Smart girl._ Anders smiles to himself.

Varric picks up the thread immediately. "Right...their leader fled the battlefield ahead of us. Bloody _coward_. He left his own people to die. It looked like the back passages led out to the coast."

_Smarter dwarf._

The next to speak is Thrask, his tone urgent, "We can still catch up if we go around the caverns. That's the faster route."

"The coast, you say?" Kerras sounds excited...perhaps he's not a fan of spelunking for apostates. "Men! Search the shore!" Then, with more restraint. "We will retrieve these corpses later. And I will commend you to the Knight-Commander, Ser Hawke."

"For what? Doing her job?" Varric's almost disappointed.

"Well...good point," he pauses. "I find it strange that you travel with a dwarf, Knight-Lieutenant."

_Uh-oh._

"And I find it strange that you _don't_," Wil responds audaciously. "So consider us strange."

"Yes...Ser Hawke," it's Thrasks turn to jump in. "I thank you once more, my friend. You have been a great help to me in this endeavor."

"I am always willing to do the Maker's work," Wil ends their conversation with an innocuous, and ironic, touch. It's a few minutes before her hand comes up to signal Anders that Grace can start coming out of the cavern. He and Bethany remain in their positions while the Starkhaven mages file past, ensuring that they're all accounted for.

Ahead, Grace pauses to thank Wil.

"I didn't think you could do it," she's pleasantly surprised. "You're quite skilled...I thought we were all dead for certain."

"I'd thank Varric, were I you," Wil shrugs off the praise. "And, if it makes you feel better, officially you were 'killed during escape.'"

"I will do my best to seem cold and rotted, then," Grace glances back at the mages gathered behind her. "Decimus had arranged for us to meet with a friend of his...he has a boat. I know the way, but we must flee as far as we can before nightfall while avoiding the templars." She returns to Wil, her lower lip pulled between her teeth, suddenly nervous. "Thank you again...you did not have to help us. Not many would...I can see why he lo-" her breath catches when she sees Wil's eyes widening and it prevents her from continuing.

_Maker's breath._ Anders begins trekking back towards Kirkwall before the others have had the chance to gather themselves. His strides are long, his staff, which is actually Wil's father's staff and a gift _a temporary gift_, strikes the ground with every step.

But he cannot keep up this pace, nor does he want to. More than embarrassment, he's feeling strangely euphoric. Well, he is once he stops to wait for the others.

_Those mages will know freedom...it is a small step._

_It's an accomplishment...in Kirkwall_, Anders smiles to himself and it stays when he sees Wil and Bethany's heads poke over a crest in the path.

"I didn't realize how bloody you'd gotten," Wil nods towards his jacket. She's apparently moved past Grace's near slip, and the way Anders all but confirmed it by running away like a child. "Also...you have corpse chunks in your feathers."

"I know," he sighs. "You'd be surprised at what I've learned to ignore. Between being a Grey Warden and my clinic...disgusting is everpresent and my appearance just isn't a priority."

Varric smirks at this, and gives Bethany a sideways glance.

"You're a man, you don't have to worry about your appearance," Bethany toys with her sleeves. "Just look at Decimus and Grace. He was practically a corpse himself and she was..."

"Beautiful," Varric finishes.

"Hot," Wil supplies.

"Pretty enough, I suppose," that's as far as he'll go. "Although...I used to have quite the fondness for tattoos on women."

"Really?" Stroking his chin, Varric gestures Bethany to come down so he can whisper something in her ear. From the way she blushes, it's not something she's completely comfortable repeating.

"Let me guess...another wager?" Wil smirks.

"But not what you think, Hawke," it's said with sly smile. "Everyone knows that you already _have_ a tattoo."

Anders chuckles at that and then _guffaws_ when he sees the furious shade of pink that renders Wil's ears practically incandescent through her mop of hair as she fumbles for an invective affectionate enough to direct at Varric. He expects for Justice to push back against his amusement, to intervene when his gaze lingers on the smile that brightens Wil's face moments later when her arm goes around Bethany's shoulder and she begins the story of the fox tattoo.

_You shouldn't look, Anders_, his eyes go to the water, but the image remains. He holds onto it, because it's nice and this afternoon has ended up being the same...

_A small step._

_No, an accomplishment._ He squints and turns to see the Gallows still distant but crouching like a bad omen on the harbor. _In Kirkwall._


	21. Appeasement

**Note:** This chapter is slightly _steamier_ in some parts than previous entries.

* * *

><p>"Are you almost done?" Anders leans his head back against the back of Wil's tenement, his eyes on the uneven roofline of the building across the alleyway as it's silhouetted against the night sky. A night of cards with Isabela meant that they'd made most of their journey to the slums with only the careful positioning of their wadded up clothes to cover themselves.<p>

"Pants are on!" Her voice is bright, accomplished.

"Andraste's ass, you need to practice speed-dressing as much as you practice...speed-undressing." _Awkward, Anders._ He laughs it off. "Although I know it's not nearly as much _fun_."

_pause_

"It might be if you were _helping_ me."

"I can only sound the warning _Wil_ so many times before it starts to lose meaning," his eyes want to swivel left to where he knows she'll be only half in shadow, but he resists. He's only just gotten himself...comfortable...after a moment of temptation outside of the Hanged Man. No need to raise the dead. Now, if only his _mouth_ could get the idea and _keep_ it. "I have _never_ enjoyed putting my clothes _on_. Especially in the presence of someone else."

"I bet you could figure out _some_ way to make it exciting, Messere Brothel Orgy Electricity _Thing_," her voice is closer now and he drops his eyes to see her clothed, leaning against the wall with the _smirkiest_ grin. And it does _nothing_ to prepare him for _this_, "Why are you doing this to yourself? What, do you think that Justice will steal your body or something if you get off?"

It's such a bold question. _Confrontational_. But he sees something like concern in her eyes and he can't be offended. He's spoken of his past in vague terms, of how he'd been before and how things have to be now. He's never specifically said he couldn't _get off_, but he's not surprised she'd draw that conclusion.

"It's not _just_ that...," his brow furrows and he doesn't know where to start. "Being _around_ people is a test sometimes, always hoping that I don't see anything that angers Vengeance, or get too upset. Just...the thought of hurting anyone I'd care enough about to be with. I can't bear the thought, so I'm not going to take the risk." He moves closer, his head falling to the side as he observes the way she's blinking rapidly and shrinking in front of him. "You're doing your _things are getting heavy and I want to flee_ thing, Wil."

"He says to the woman who has accidentally killed one, and almost another, by _breathing_," her smirk is gone, of course, and has been replaced with displeased scowl.

_Fuck_. "But that only happens when you're hurt which...if that's the case during sex, then you're doing it wrong," he tries to salvage the whole mess with a half-hearted joke.

Wil picks it up, shaking off the shadow of distress to raise her eyes up to the sky and force a chuckle. "It depends on who you ask. I bet Isabela, for one, would beg to differ." Then she reaches across the space between him to swat his shoulder with the back of her hand. "Lucky bitch."

He goes to walk past, being careful to give her a wide berth. "Who? Her or me?"

Laughing again, and meaning it this time, she shakes her head and follows him around the side of the building where she's halted by his outstretched hand within seconds.

Thirty feet ahead in the alley as if this isn't Lowtown around midnight, is a chantry priest. She's by no means an imposing figure, average height and compact build, but something about her turns Anders' stomach and breaks like cold sweat across his skin.

She's waiting, it seems, arms crossed and posture expectant. For almost a full second Anders and Wil remain motionless.

_Motionless_ after Wil leans against Anders, that is, her arm flung around his waist and her chin resting on his shoulder. If he could imagine how he looks now, it would be tense face and two blushy warm spots where she's making contact.

From the opposite end of the alley comes a solid figure, his long copper hair twisted into tight braids, his features wide and bloated. Although he wears the colors of one of the local mercenary companies, his approach is not threatening but it's _dark_ and _Lowtown_ and the priest does nothing more than lower her arms to her side.

"They say there's chantry folk here what's looking to hire," he gruffs down at her. "If'ns that's you, we's got interest."

"I am looking for someone native to the dark places of Lowtown," her voice uncoils. "If you can offer as much, then yes. I will pay."

The man hooks his thumbs into his belt and chuckles. "Then why don't you's come and meet us. You kin decide that we's the ones you want, and we kin get a look at that coin."

He gestures towards a side alley that leads to the alienage bridge and _nobody_ could possibly be foolish enough to-

"Andraste's flaming sword," Anders' chin drops in disappointment as the priest allows herself to be shepherded away by the man, her shoulders remaining proud and high.

"Why yes, I think I _would_ like to follow you down a dark alley, Serah Shady-ass mercenary. What could _possibly_ go wrong?" Wil breathes sarcasm into his ear, causing shivers as the hair along his jaw shifts and tickles at his cheek.

"She's in danger," said with a sigh and what he really means is _we should save her, although I don't much want to. _

"Can you save someone so foolish?" She's away and leaning over to check that her daggers are still sheathed in her boots.

"I guess we'll find out...we'll also find out how willing a sister is to overlook blatant displays of apostatism when the apostate has helped save her life," he groans, already dreading the inevitable disdain.

Wil watches him, but continues stalking backwards as she speaks. "Let's try to talk it out...what do you say? We're near enough to a patrol route, I bet I could convince them there are guards coming or...you could glow blue and scare them away and just tell the sister that it was something you ate?"

"I suppose the _spirit casserole_ at the Hanged Man _will_ do that to a man."

It stops her with a wide smile on her face that melts into open adoration the closer he gets. And it's enough to make him almost forget all the reasons why he can't be with her, and why he shouldn't be with her _now_, alone. But it's been so long_, too long_, and without Justice making much noise this evening it would be easy to fall-

It would be like a second first kiss, his _first_ first kiss by the village well and she'd been a blonde slip of a girl with mischievous eyes and pink bow lips. He'd been eight or nine and not interested until she was on her tip-toes, one palm pressed against the back of his shoulder for balance and the other trailing down his chest. The warmth of her mouth on his was a surprise, as was the sketching of heat across his skin, the way his stomach turned liquid and colors he'd never seen before streaked across his vision.

Sigrun had told him once that the first time she'd seen the sky on a clear night, with the stars shimmering against a sky of improbably deep sapphire, that it wasn't seeing something for new, but a sense of having entirely new _eyes_...the old ones not able to grasp such miraculous beauty or such vast perfection.

That's what Anders imagines it would feel like to kiss someone now. If not because of his new perspective on what kissing could mean, now that he's not of a mind to kiss _everybody_, but because of Justice. In Kristoff's body, he'd felt the man's memories as his own, had relived tender moments shared between the Warden and the woman he'd loved. _Before_, such relations had intrigued him. Anders fears that his own memories, which are laced with far _less_ emotional poignancy, have soured Justice on the idea of love, of _acts_ of love.

_Would this be an act of love?_ Wil's watching him with soft, serious eyes and her mouth is wavering between a smile and something far more cautious and he thinks, not for the first time, that she _knows_ she's taking a risk. _The biggest risk_. She doesn't grasp the magnitude. Nothing has changed. He's still...with spirit, dangerous and unpredictable. A couple of good days doesn't change that, a couple of good days hasn't freed the mages or lessened the need for a person like him to exist. It hasn't changed the past or wiped clean the Wardens and templars he'd killed to escape...if he touches her now, if he says _anything_ or does anything on behalf of how he feels _at this moment_, it will be an act of selfishness.

"Do you want to stay here and let me talk to him?" Her voice has a slight tremor, but she's clearly not put out. One day he'll ask why she endures it...why she endures _him_. But tonight has been a good night, and he should _cling_ and _not_ taint.

His head shakes. "I go with you," he forces a smile. "I rather like the spirit casserole line."

* * *

><p>Wil hates her.<p>

Even as she's trying to protect her, coaxing the mercenaries into better targets, exaggerating the scope of the templars' authority to include hunting them down for being idiots enough to shake down a chantry priest, for the love of Andraste, she hates her.

It's almost instinctive. There's so many ways about her, like her eyes narrowed in disdain, and her appearance of someone perpetually contending with the stench of filth.

Once the men have gotten the point and left with no bloodshed, the sister is thankful at least, although her tone is not sincere and her eyes dart to the shadows around them.

"I am...out of my element," she manages to focus on Wil for that glorious understatement.

"Oh, no worries. I love risking my neck for randoms," Wil rolls her eyes, making it clear that she does _not_ love risking her neck for randoms.

The priests' shoulders roll back in a shrug, "I had to come here to get the type of person I need. Someone of _bloody_ skill, but also integrity. I'm assuming that it's not false bravado you showed those men, and it says something about you that you would risk your life to aid a stranger." The words are kind on the surface, but Wil catches patronization in the undertone. "I have a charge who needs passage from the city...if you are willing, meet me at my safehouse just after dusk tomorrow."

The sister has a tidily folded scrap of parchment that she shoves into Wil's hand as if she's just _now_ aware of how crooked this seems and she wants to get it done.

Wil toys with the paper before tucking it into her pocket. "You're awfully quick to trust me...and to assume I'm willing to help. Never mind that you almost got in it already."

The woman's blue eyes are clear of emotion, although a twitching at the corner of her mouth betrays frustration she's hoping to mask with an urgent tone and practical argument, "All the more reason I cannot trust just _anyone_...you have proven yourself already. _And_ you live in Lowtown, so you _must_ need coin." She looks Wil over, from her tragically mussed hair to her scuffed leather boots. Anders doesn't even warrant a second glance. "Varnell!"

She's shouting into shadows, and Wil's not certain _why_ she's surprised in the least when an unfamiliar templar emerges.

"Perfect," Anders mutters as he and Wil share a relieved glance. It's a minor miracle that they were able to handle the mercenaries without violence or betraying their identities, now even more so. Although she knows that some templars can sense mages, Wil doubts that one with such abilities would be serving as a private guard dog for a sister.

"It seems like our help was superfluous," she grinds out. The sister, if she senses Wil's anger, cares little.

"I hope you will come," it's arch. Then, to avoid further argument, she strides forward, cutting a path that forces Wil and Anders apart. "This matter grows only more urgent as the weeks go by."

They watch her go, Varnell giving them one last glare for good measure.

"Well _that_ was hardly worthwhile," she heads back towards the slums, her eyes still on the retreating figures. "Unfortunately, I want to know what she's up to...and more coin wouldn't hurt."

"You have enough money for the expedition...how much more do you need?"

She winces at the implications of greed in his question. He doesn't mean it, she wants to believe, but it's close enough to her own concerns about her motivantion that there's the smallest sting left behind by his words.

"I have enough for Mother to live on while we're gone," she keeps her focus straight ahead. She sounds defensive. "But between Thrask and this...well, we have no idea how long we'll be gone and something tells me the survival rate of these sorts of adventures isn't the best. It can't hurt to scrape together as much as I can...in case I don't come back."

"Oh," he responds in lieu of an apology, but she knows what he means. Then, as they enter the square, "_Oh_."

This _Oh_ could be interpreted several ways, but it's more than likely just his displeasure at seeing Sorrell waiting by the steps of her building.

Sorrell, for his part, is polite to Anders. He offers a nod, wishes him good evening and stands by patiently as Wil sends the mage up without her, telling him to let Bethany and Mother know who she's with. He's not thrilled at his task, _that_ much is evident, but he offers his aid for the following evening nonetheless.

"I share your curiosity," he explains, deliberately cryptic. "If there's earth shattering business that involves the chantry...I feel like I should probably know about it."

He leaves them with that, not even bothering to acknowledge Sorrell as he goes, and Wil waits until he's in the building before she speaks.

"He doesn't get out much," she grins crookedly. "Not that I'm under _any_ impression that he'd be any more polite if he did."

Nonchalant as ever, Sorrell shrugs. "It's a good thing I didn't come here to see him then, isn't it?" His own mouth twists to match hers. "I was worried that you might have already left...although the Sapt- Aveline assured me that you hadn't."

_Meddling Aveline._ "Still here!" Wil enthuses, and she can't keep her eyes from searching his face. _Damn him and his handsomeness. _

As if sensing her weakness in the face of his _face_, Sorrell abandons any pretense of conversation. Instead, his fingers push through her hair, careful yet insistent, and his lips are close behind to settle against hers.

She's never had any complaints about Sorrell's kissing, and tonight is no exception. As a matter of fact, Wil's skin breathes relief at _contact_ after being primed by another's intense gaze. That the contact is coming from Sorrell and not Anders dims the fire, or doesn't get it quite as _hot_, but her standards for such are weakened from hours of walking and pints of ale and a pressure alleviated by success.

Once again he reads her, his warm lips breaking with hers and his hand curling into the front of her shirt to tug her along. "I have something I want to show you."

"I _bet_ you do," she responds with a lasciviousness that makes him chuckle and drop his grasp to the waistband of her trousers. The sensation of his fingers that low unspools heat from her stomach to spill down and she's so intent on enjoying the anticipation of what more he has to _show_ that she almost doesn't realize he's leading her into the building across the square from Gamlen's. "Are you so crazy with lust that you've forgotten where you live?"

He smiles, then turns to guide her up the stairs. "I've been saving my money for almost three years to get something outside of the alienage," his voice falters. "I've never had a real home before, and this is the perfect place. There are elves around, so I won't stand out too much, and it's not as bad as some of the other squares in Lowtown. Just...just don't freak out, Hawke," a line appears between his luminous eyes. "You're...freaking out."

Wil shakes her head, her mouth pulled shut with a sound like a hollow wooden block being struck. She's not freaking out...not really. This is just...unexpected, is all. He has an apartment, close to where she lives _but not for long, if this expedition goes according to plan_.

"I'm not," she asserts, her voice not quite supportive of the statement. "But you know that I...this is a _little_ weird. A _little_."

"It is. _Listen_," he pulls her up the last few steps and presses his hand against the side of her neck in reassurance. "This has nothing to do with you. I _swear_. It was just the right place for the right price...I almost didn't go for it because I _knew_ how it would look and you've made it clear that it's not like that between us...but I figured you would at least want me out of that sleazebag hotel."

"Of course," and it's the truth, even though it doesn't _sound_ much like it. He's relieved enough to continue leading her up a single flight of stairs and into his new home.

The space is sparse, smaller than Gamlen's own quarters. It's on a corner, though, and has windows along the long main wall, which might be a great thing. Or a _terrible_ thing, depending on what's going on in the alley below on any given day.

Besides the basic furnishings, there's a small bookshelf that has found an alternative purpose as a weapon rack. Several daggers line the shelves, a proud little display of Sorrell's capabilities. One stands out, a qunari dagger they'd found on the coast. It's far larger than the ones around it, impractical for someone of Sorrell's size, but he'd been fascinated by the nocks along the blue steel blade and the finger bones embedded in the grip.

"I met the Arishok," Wil glances over her shoulder. "He's…kind of a jerk."

Sorrell's lips twitch in a smile, although his eyes indicate that he has un-Arishok related pursuits on his mind.

"Does qunari talk turn you on now?" She turns back to the daggers and it's only seconds before he's responding to that question, a silent answer in the form of his teeth pressing gently where her neck meets her shoulder and his hand finding its way down the front of her breeches. "_Oh_," she murmurs and this _Oh_ is unambiguously pleased because she's been holding back in the face of temptation all night and, if nothing else, he knows what he's doing. "_Yes_, then."

"Hawke," he whispers raw and needfully, as if he's given up on the idea of being anything more to her than the best damned lover she's ever had. Groaning softly as she presses her back against him, his arousal echoes and ignites inside her, forcing her to turn so that their lips can meet imperfectly, his tongue alight against her own, and there's so much to focus on, so much to feel _his fingers part her_ and hear _his breath catches as he slips in and she tightens instinctively in welcome _and taste _like sweet cider and honeyed bread_, and none of it will be yanked away at the last second...nothing ambiguous or unseen will force its way between them. "Just so you know," he murmurs against her throat, "I intend on keeping you for the night."

And she lets him.

* * *

><p>She stays longer than just the night, morning passing them by and neither one in a particular hurry to join it.<p>

Instead they tangle and untangle between naps, laugh over their deplorable breath and how Sorrell can be taller than her when they sit side by side because she's, by his estimate, 99% leg. Eventually, he stumbles into the main room and comes back with burnt pastries and honey. The pastries are a housewarming offering from Aveline, the honey to make them edible.

And when it becomes clear that _nothing_ can save the Captain of the Guard's cooking, the honey is put to other uses that carry them well into the early afternoon, when the sunlight slanting through the windows splashes across their bared skin and the world outside intrudes with it in a cacophony of shouting children, creaking wagons and the usual din of city life.

It also brings to Wil a sense of unease as she realizes Sorrell's watching her come around to the idea of finally starting the day, his eyes drawn to her face and blazing with the sort of intensity that she's not comfortable inspiring in _him_.

_Why? Why is it weird anymore? He's about half as intense as Anders is over _everything_...and how many times have we been together?_ Her thoughts are becoming frantic, as if she's realizing that there might be a serious problem with her if the _idea_ of letting this become meaningful is so off-putting to her.

"You're freaking out again," his eyes fall closed as he rolls onto his back, one hand pulling the coverlet over his groin.

"I am," she sits up. "And I wish I knew why."

It comes out so plainly sincere that it washes over him like a wave of embarrassment, his brow wrinkling and the nibble-abused tips of his ears reddening.

"Maker's breath, Sorrell." She crawls across the bed towards him, trying to explain because he deserves _something_, doesn't he? But she has nothing to follow up with besides, "I could fuck you again...that might make things _marginally_ less awful."

He allows a sharp laugh, his eyes opening but rolled back to avoid her. "Maybe I should have bought you flowers first...or got to know you better," his gaze turns to her at this, knowing. "Or maybe I should have openly pined for you...pretending to be interested in your sister optional."

Wil grimaces. Until _just now_, she'd forgotten that she'd once suggested that Bethany and Anders were...a thing.

"There was never any pretending...except on my part," this is a carefully constructed misdirection, and not _necessarily_ an outright lie. The Varric influence, she supposes. "I'd hoped? He's an apostate, so..." she stares at her hands, aware of how unconvincing she is. Losing him, she turns to the one sentiment she can sell, "He'd do anything to keep her safe from the templars...perhaps even more than _I_ would."

A small sigh escapes his lips and Wil takes it as a signal to continue on her way out, redressing going far quicker _now_ than it had the evening before, even with her clothes strewn through three rooms, one boot somehow in the washbasin and her smalls completely missing. After a few minutes of half-naked scurrying, she decides to relinquish them to the void of sexual misadventures and tugs on her breeches. From the main room, she can hear Sorrell getting himself decent.

_I don't really _need_ to have my boots on, do I? It's not like I'm walking back to Ferelden or anything. Although... _And she knows just how weird she is for being so panicked after a half day of nothing that wasn't more than pleasant, but there's a building pressure within her that won't be alleviated until she's back home with Bethany and in a place where she knows what she is and _why_.

"When are you leaving?" He's lounging in his bedroom doorway, hair adorably mussed and cheeks pink. The plate of pastries is pressed against his bare stomach and just above is a livid mark that looks suspiciously like the press of her teeth. "I suppose a less..._fraught_ good-bye is out of the question."

"In a few days, I think. Listen..." she pulls awkwardly at her shirt, an apology dancing across her tongue that he preemptively rejects with a quick shake of his head. "Then at least let me relieve you of the burden of finishing Aveline's tarts...just tell her that they were very much enjoyed. She never needs to know it was _Bello_ who enjoyed them."

Sorrell's eyes hold hers as he offers her the plate and she accepts it, careful to not brush his fingers as she does.

"Be careful, Wil," he's never called her anything but _Hawke_ and _Wil_ buzzes across her skin in a not unpleasant way that she'll convince herself later hurt to the core. His sentiment is quite nice, if undeserved at this moment, and...

"We can't do this again," she's not able to look anywhere but at the plate in her hand, and the topography of cracked dough oozing red with congealed strawberry jam is seared into her memory, forever associated with a knot in the center of her chest and the notion that what she's doing is a profound and confusing mixture of awful, right and regrettable. "It's not...I feel like I should want what _you_ want, and I don't, and I am nowhere near a place where I can sort out why it is or make myself even try to."

_Please don't hate me_...one of the pastries has what looks like a fly baked into its crust.

Sorrell shifts in the doorway, his shadow narrowing on the floor in front of her.

"That doesn't change the fact that I want you to come home safely," he speaks with a controlled stillness that betrays several things, but most of all his heart. "Hawke."

* * *

><p>"Isn't it strange that her secret hideout is so close to your apartment, Hawke?" When Merrill's popped up on her toes, she's nearly as tall as Wil and gives the impression of a farmer's scarecrow, all awkward approximation of body and limbs. "Do you think she <em>meant<em> for you to find her?"

Wil frowns. It's been her default state all afternoon.

"I don't recall anyone who fits the description at services," tapping her staff thoughtfully against the ground, Bethany offers a silvery giggle. Her mood is uncommonly up this evening. "Although, you haven't given me _much_ to work with."

"Blonde and bitch-faced is surprisingly accurate," Anders stands several feet away from the three women in order to avoid Merrill, as if he can catch a case of the blood mage from proximity alone.

"So how smart is it to take three mages with me to meet a priest who has her own pet templar?" Wil examines the door in front of her, which offers direct access to a subterranean apartment in the building across from her own. Without Varric, whose evening is being consumed by last-minute plans for their trip, or Isabela to spot traps, she's being cautious. She sees no wires or triggers from here, and Anders detects no wards. "All right...let's go in. Now remember," she speaks to her sister and Merrill. "This woman is kind of awful...so if she casually insults you, don't take it too personally. When this is over, we can imitate her over ale at the Hanged Man."

Merrill's brows draw in disappointment, "But I don't drink ale. And she can't be that bad...the priest in the alienage is always so nice to me!"

"That's because she knows you're Dalish," Anders speaks as if _Merrill_ might not know it. "She wants you to become a good little Andrastian that can then be ignored like the others."

Wil has the overwhelming urge to hit his shoulder in solidarity...but she fights it for Bethany's sake.

"Follow me," she commands instead and pushes at the door.

The quarters beyond a set of stairs that Wil isn't certain will bear out their purpose for much longer are squalid even for Lowtown; the warped wooden walls are mildewed and a mixture of dust and rat droppings darken the floor. A stench of the undercity wafts between cracks in the floorboards, and Wil can see an entire section is missing on the far back corner.

At the center of the main room is Varnell, his sword drawn and his face twisted in what's supposed to be a fearsome glare. Despite Bethany and Anders tensing behind her, Wil can't take the man seriously.

"Are you from Lowtown yourself?" She waves threat aside. "You've certainly got the hospitality down."

He sneers, but is gestured to stand down by the priest who emerges from the back with precise steps and the expression of one who is offended by the very air.

"It's you," she speaks urgently. "I'm glad you could make it...it's a matter of delicacy and I need someone of limited notoriety who will _not_ link this back to me." Pausing for a moment, the priest is carefully considering how to best phrase the offer. "It _is_ an escort, but you should agree that the nature of the party makes this situation unique."

_Should I?_ Wil frowns...or frowns _harder_, rather. "Just tell me who and where and let me decide from there, all right?"

"All right," the priest squares her shoulders. "I am Sister Petrice...and _this_ is my burden of charity."

Wil's eyes cut to the back room, expecting...well anything but what presents itself.

"She'va dal," Merrill whispers and despite not knowing what it means, Wil's inclined to agree.

It's a qunari that stands before them, a collared qunari that has been relieved of the inconvenience of its horns, it seems, by having them unevenly sawn away. From the remaining nubs is secured a carved golden mask that is more a cage for its face than anything else. Below that...Wil's skin shrinks at the sight of the thick threads that are woven into its lips, the uneven stitches zagging haphazardly and wearing permanent grooves into the raw flesh around its mouth.

Chains are draped from the high collar to constrict the creature's arms and chafe at the smooth planes of its chest. Even its wrists have been bound, although not shackled, and the cuffs are the same dull gold as the mask, lending the great, grey figure the appearance of a macabre work of statuary...the stillness with which it holds itself only strengthening the impression.

"Would even a cruel templar bind a mage like this?" Petrice gazes up at her prize. "He's survived brutal infighting with their outcasts. I call him Ketojan...it means a bridge between worlds."

_What worlds is he supposed to bridge?_ Wil has so many questions that she grasps onto the one thing she knows for certain...this Ketojan can't be _much_ of a threat if he hasn't thought or attempted to get away from Petrice.

"The Viscount and others would appease the Arishok and give this mage back to its brutal kin, in the name of peace," the sister's selling her position, and fervantly. "He could serve a better purpose...so I want him free. He _must_ be taken out of the city without alerting his people, or being seen with- in my care."

"Mina," Bethany leans forward to whisper in her ear, not giving Wil a chance to refuse or press for more information. "This mage has endured far worse than any fate I've outrun. We _must_ help him."

"I've spoken with the Arishok," Wil's frown deepens as she imagines what cryptic lecture he'd give were he here. "He'll want to-"

"_You've_ had...dealings with their leader?" Petrice's eyes register surprise and Wil can see the scrambling of her thoughts as she weighs this new information. Perhaps she'll excuse Wil due to the fact that her notoriety isn't quite as limited as the _average_ Lowtown thug. "Well...then you know how they see their outcasts, and treat those who step outside of roles. And if he were to harm a _known_ associate, then it would prove that familiarity does not mean safety."

_What?_

"You know what? Just tell me where I'm taking him and we'll go," Wil speaks before she loses nerve. She's starting to feel distinctly unsafe in this place and fears more what Petrice and her templar can do to her than the qunari. _Any_ of the qunari. This woman and her machinations aside, Wil feels for the bound mage in front of her, although she wonders what sort of life awaits him outside of Kirkwall. She doubts he's received any training outside of blind obedience and unhesitating submission...

"...I bet the chantry hates that they can't handle us the way the qunari handle _their_ mages," Anders had started ranting the moment they'd made it out of Petrice's safehouse and into the tunnel that ran beneath the tenements. They've been picking their way along the sewers for almost an hour, guided by Bethany, her staff used for illumination. Anders holds the rear with Ketojan, both men close behind Wil. Merrill, having turned as green as her favored tunic at the idea of stepping barefoot through the accumulated filth that lined most of their passage, is situated rather comfortably on Wil's back and has spent most of the time tutting away Anders' bitter tirade.

"The Circles serve the purpose they want them to serve," Bethany counters. "What good would it do to...sew our lips closed and turn us into mindless husks?"

Wil shivers at the thought of her sister, of _any_ of the three mages she's with, in such a state and is comforted by the barest hint of a sympathetic tightening of Merrill's thin arms around her shoulders.

"Control...absolute control," Anders spits. "We could be used as weapons without the concern that we'll turn on our captors once the battle is done."

"But the qunari see themselves differently...right?" It's difficult to speak with Merrill on her, but Wil manages. "It's why forced tranquility is supposed to be a last resort, and why mages are given a closed society in which they have _some_ choices-"

"Choices?" He doesn't let her get any further. "I suppose chicken or beef is a choice, or face or stomach. I wasn't even allowed to choose what school I studied...as soon as the First Enchanter found out I had a gift for healing, he 'encouraged' me away from my entropy courses."

"You didn't want to be a healer?" She recalls the night she'd cared for him in his delirium, how disdainfully he spoke of his clinic and patients and the disappointment she'd felt upon realizing that the man she called Anders might not be _entirely_ Anders.

He snorts. "Tell me what would seem more interesting to a teenage boy, studying herbology and poking at dead rats for anatomy lessons or summoning deadly mists and learning how to give people nightmares?"

Point made. "I'd go with destructo magic, myself," Wil nods towards her sword, which is sheathed on Bethany's back. "_Clearly_ more my speed."

"Oh, once Senior Enchanter Wynne told me that healers are more in demand outside of the Circle, I wanted nothing more than to be the best damned healer in Thedas," his tone is bemused. "I can't say that it's not paying off now...as long as I pretend that healing and a few minor spells of convenience are all I can do, the refugees feel safe enough around me."

There's something in the way he says _pretend_ that triggers an alarm, but Wil's unable to act on it before Bethany is halting them.

"Voices," she points to an opening at her right. Beyond is a cavernous room spotted with small tent clusters, all centered around smoldering fires that have turned the walls and ceiling sooty.

"This is where we're headed," Wil finds a clear spot to set Merrill down and accepts her sword back. They've encountered only a few large spiders on their way through, easily handled by Beth and Anders, but there's likely a thief or two ahead. "Let's keep to the center of the room...away from the camps. I'd rather avoid engaging anyone if we can help it."

Fortunately it's late enough that most are asleep, bags of bones curled up on their beds of dirty straw that are only half covered in mildewed scraps salvaged from the world above. Those that remain awake watch wearily as Wil and her companions pass, exhaustion or delirium or drunkenness making them disinterested in the shuffling qunari that they escort.

But it's too much to hope that they get out without incident, a band of shabbily armored men are clustered near the entrance to the tunnel that should take them out to the coast. They watch Wil's approach with idol curiosity until they notice Ketojan. It's a subtle show of panic, their hands inching towards iron daggers and their heads raising in re-assessment.

Their leader greets Wil with a leer, his approach clear.

"So predictable...the undercity has no shortage of fools with coin wandering around," his eyes wonder down her armor. His intent is not lascivious, but practical. "Are you _lost_, love, or are you _looking_ for trouble?"

Wil's hard-eyed silence is answer enough. His attention moves to Ketojan.

"What's _this_ thing? Collared like a dog lord's bitch," he glances at Wil. "Are you a qunari lover, sweetheart? Maybe I should get rid of you, see how much coin I can get for your _pet_."

He takes a casual step forward and is greeted by Ketojan's chest and a remarkably threatening gurgle that issues from the qunari's sewn lips.

"Uh," another bandit speaks up, hesitant. "I don't think he likes you threatening his master...maybe we should let this one pass."

Wil casts him a tight smile. "You're smart...what exactly are you doing with _this_ guy?"

The first man has had enough, his hand going for a dagger at his belt, "You think you can come into _my_ city and buy up everything from beneath us, running decent Kirkwallers like me into the sewers." The blade gleams at Wil's throat, "Well I've got something to tell you, _princess_, if you-"

Ketojan interrupts the bandit, permanently, via a blast of energy that explodes from his hands and results in a flailing body impacting the far wall of the sewer before it crumples into the muck on the cavern floor.

His remaining men are momentarily rooted, staring between their fallen leader and Wil's crew. Ketojan remains bathed in something like white fire that dances and coils over his skin. Behind them she can smell the magic of her companions being primed. Warm grass, ozone and freshly crushed mint.

It's too much for the bandits, the _smart_ one raising his hands in defeat and they flee before any more of them can be flung or struck down by lightning or set on fire.

"That went better than I expected," Wil swoops down to pick up the dagger dropped when Ketojan had struck the leader. Shoving the prize into her belt, she eyes her parcel, who has stopped _flaming_ and remains stoic beneath her gaze. "Did you attack that man because he threatened your lead?"

_garrgheble_

"I'm assuming that means _yes_," she presses her fingers against her forehead when he responds with more phlegmy noises. "I wonder how much of this is instinct...a willingness to follow and protect whoever is in charge of him."

_grruggleblrgh_

She beats down laughter, the madness of her situation and the horribleness of _his_ catching at her. Of _all_ the things she'd been expecting this afternoon, when she'd been eating her mother's cookies with Merrill and Beth and debating whether or not she should even help Petrice, aiding a qunari mage to freedom had definitely _not_ crossed her mind. Even after her numerous dealings with them in recent days, and having seen their compound and spoken with their Arishok, they are a mystery to her. What she _does_ know is that everything she says is turned against her as proof that she is floundering, desperate for a role and salvation from the uncertainty and stinking Void that is life in Kirkwall. But if _this_ is what they're offering?

"All right, we're getting out of here before anyone else tries to _steal_ you," she turns to go just as Ketojan garbles a response and _this_ time it's tears she fights as they burn her eyes with the unfairness of it all.

* * *

><p>Once again she's surrounded by dead qunari, only these were <em>not<em> Tal'vashoth. These were followers of the Qun, and a trap that must have been carefully laid by Petrice and her ilk.

"Something for me to remember...the qunari take mages _seriously_," Wil glances over to where Merrill and Bethany are picking over the fallen Arvaraad. Anders is holding the strange golden rod that had been used to disable Ketojan when the qunari had attacked them, and he hands it to Wil as if it's fashioned from glass and not solid metal.

"Who knows what'll happen if it breaks," his eyes dart to the qunari mage..._saarebas_ in their tongue. "What do you plan on doing with him now? He can't be returned to the Arishok...if they were willing to attack _us_ just for being unbound mages, I can't imagine what they'd do to him if they knew he'd been in our company."

She sighs, her grip tightening on the rod and it's enough to break the bonds that have kept Ketojan on his hands and knees. Carefully he lumbers up, stretching while he does as if he's been held far longer than the fight had lasted.

"I am...unbound," his voice is dry and every syllable uttered is a fight won. But he pushes on, much to her shock. "Odd..._wrong_. But you deserve honor. You are now _basvaarad_, worthy of following." He gazes down at Wil, his eyes gleaming beyond the warped holes carved into his mask. "I thank your intent, even if it was...wrong. I know..._you_ know. I must return as demanded. It is the wisdom...," he stares at the coast ahead. "It is the wisdom of the Qun."

_Of course it is. _She wishes she could fling the damn rod into the sea, then grab Ketojan by the shoulders and shake him, as much like trying to shake down an actual stone wall as it would be. Instead she frowns up at him. "Well, _that's_ gratitude. I fought so you could go die anyway?" She sighs, dramatic and put upon.

"No. I commit to the most difficult choice: the truth of the Qun," he insists, managing to say it without faltering even though Wil can practically hear the blood on the words, from his parched, underused throat and his lips as they pull against their stitches.

"But what if it's wrong? What if you're just...punishing yourself for nothing?" She attempts to follow him as he strides toward the shore, his movements full of new purpose. The difference in their size makes her feel as if she's a child again, skipping after her father.

_"You're walking too fast for me, Mal," she chirps his grown up name and grabs for the hand that swings freely at his side, the other clinging to the golden staff he carries propped against his shoulder._

_He smiles down at her and allows himself to be caught. "Only because I know this road so well, Mina. But I should be more cautious...no path is without its dangers, even those as familiar as our own names."_

"Many say that, before they know certainty," he stops and looks back, his expression sympathetic for _her_, even though it's his end they discuss.

"Could you have returned if, I'd let those others live? If I'd...surrendered or _not_ pushed on the mage thing?"

"No."

She stops, the reality of his situation hitting with sudden and heartbreaking clarity. "You mean that you were doomed from the start?"

"I was outside my karataam, my role," he explains, patient. "I may be corrupted...I cannot know for certain, I cannot _trust_ myself to know." His gaze returns to the dark water; it seems he finds peace in how it glimmers in the harsh moonlight. "There is one thing I do know...how I return is my choice."

Anders has been trailing them, probably out of curiosity. This is, after all, a glimpse into a fate that could have been his own. Apparently he is less moved by Ketojan's plight than she. "Of all the _ridiculous_, spineless, mind-controlled, senseless piece of shit arguments I've _ever_ heard!" He grabs her shoulder. "Are you going to let it go at that?"

His eyes search hers, looking perhaps into another time or place when he might be uncertain or corrupted beyond his ability to reason. He's an abomination, after all, one that can't even trust himself with intimacy for fear of losing control.

What would she do for _him_? _Would I become your certainty? _Her heart twists painfully beneath her breast, a far more visceral reaction than she should be having and unshed tears make her brow ache. _Or would I let you choose your own way, as painful as it might be for the both of us? _

Without looking, Ketojan senses the struggle within Anders. "What comfort has freedom brought you, mage? You would have more if you submitted to the Qun."

Amber eyes darken to black and then dart away from Wil's. She wants to grab his chin, to force him to take back the dire thoughts he's given her, and to explain how something so unlikely and abstract can break her like a bone.

Instead, she goes cold. She cannot control the saarebas any more than she could control Anders and she wants them unlinked in her mind. "_My_ job ended when we exited the city," _job_ stings her throat on its way out, as if it's _barbed_ in her feigned apathy. "The rest is up to you."

The ghost of a smile etches lines along the edges of Ketojan's mouth as he speaks the words she should have realized were coming. "You know of certainty and borders. You are closer to the qunari than you admit. Your role would change little under the Qun." One hand reaches awkwardly into his collar and emerges with an amulet, a jagged thing of stark beauty that is solid, disconcerting and spans the width of Wil's palm when she accepts it. "Take this secret thing, basvaarad, and remember this."

And, as if to _ensure_ that she can never forget, he takes three large strides forward before consuming himself in flames, a pillar of magic against the night sky that smells of...

_death. _Simple, pointless, inevitable death.

Behind her, Merrill lets out a startled cry and Bethany's there to comfort her. Anders is already cursing Petrice, urging Wil to confront her for so obviously setting them up.

And she will...although her anger at the sister is so diluted now by a grief she barely understands, and her grief tainted by anger, that nothing seems real except the secret thing in her hand and the smoldering corpse of Ketojan, a bridge between worlds.

* * *

><p>"Leave nothing," Petrice speaks urgently to Varnell as he gathers the few comforts they must have extended to the qunari during his stay with them. "It must be clean with <em>no<em> ties. And hurry, we have to be out of here before..."

She stops when she sees Wil lounging in the doorway between the main room and the sleeping quarters. Wil cocks one eyebrow, a cheeky gesture at odds with the cold rage in her eyes.

"Hawke?" Petrice smiles, and her face looks as if it might break. "It _was_ Hawke, right? From the streets?"

"_From the streets_?" Anders echoes in disbelief, promptly ignored.

"You...took the qunari from the city?" Her forehead crumples in confusion, a split second where the mask almost slips. "Without...incident?"

Bethany steps forward, her staff striking the floor next to Wil's feet. "Don't pretend, _sister_," she loads the title with betrayed accusation. "You _know_ what we faced."

"Mind your tongue, Fereldan," eyes narrowed, Varnell tries to intimidate the younger woman until Wil takes a threatening step forward, all pretense of amusement gone and nothing left but the rage and the _you will _not_ treat my sister the way that you treat me_.

"We'll do whatever we damn well please with our tongues," Wil is cool despite. "I just want to know what you hoped to accomplish, exactly. Your Ketojan is dead...he killed himself rather than be free."

A scowl contorts Petrice's lips for the briefest of moments then dies so that she can respond with fake sincerity, "I had assumed he wanted to escape, just as _I_ would." She frowns, and this is real...she doesn't understand why it matters. "My pity is genuine, but they are _not_ like us."

"There is no _us_," Wil asserts. "There's me, my sister and our friends...and there's _you_, who would not hesitate to sacrifice _us_ for your...whatever it is you _think_ you're doing." She can't control the jagged edge of disgust in her voice, "What you probably think you're _justified_ in doing."

"Whether you believe it or not, I wished you no harm," Petrice uncoils, her tone patronizing and her shoulders lowering. "That might have been useful for _someone_, but still regrettable. A massacre of citizens protecting a slave might have forced the Chantry to doubt appeasement, to see the Qunari for the monsters they are-"

"They're not the only monsters in Kirkwall," Anders rushes in to fill the pause in Petrice's careful reconstruction of the trap she'd set, his voice aching to make his point. "And yet you do nothing about _their_ abuses."

The sister continues nonplussed, her explanation weaving itself around a casually poisonous core and she just does _not_ get it. "Perhaps finding the mage was a..._rushed_ opportunity. If such a plot existed, I see how it might be...disagreeable to you."

_Disagreeable?_

"Quite the contrary," Wil's arms go out as if to embrace Petrice's mad logic. "I'd find dying for a woman I loathe, on behalf of a cause I don't agree with that's to preserve an institution that I care tits all for _fantastically_ agreeable. Only a crazy person would _not_ want to give their life in pursuit of such _glory_."

Petrice's eyes are midnight slits, empty of anything but her own dogged obsession. "If a member of the Chantry admitted instigation, I have no doubt it would result in more _appeasement_." As if _appeasement_ is the worst thing in the world. "But an accusation from a Lowtown thug? You are hardly that important." She shrugs it off.

Wil's arms cross her chest and makes a very _Aveline_ face, her spine seeming to expand by three inches and become something like steel.

The eyes unarrow; they widen, in fact. Panicked. She's trying to backtrack and only makes it worse..."That's not an _insult_- it's why I _chose_ you. Rest assured that excuses, real or imagined, are _not_ for your benefit."

_You bitch_. The urge to laugh seizes at Wil, all fight gone in the face of such..._is there even a word for this? I'd label it _crazy_, but if I keep doing that, _crazy_ will start to lose all meaning._

"You used us...preyed on my willingness to help someone who might need it," Wil won't stoop to Petrice's level any longer, she won't mock or accuse, but... "I _won't_ forget this."

_This_ is what angers the sister the most, the idea that the messy hoodrat in front of her will ever be in a place to hold her accountable. Her lips fall into a sneer as she pulls out a burlap pouch and flings it at Wil's chest. "Take your _coin_. _Disappear back into Lowtown_. Go ahead and pretend that you did this for the right reasons, but I _know_ what you are, Hawke. I know what you _really_ want." Her eyes drop to where Wil is clutching the coinpurse to her heart, which is all the confirmation she needs. "Rest assured I will _not_ make the mistake of looking for help outside the faithful again. The stakes, _eternity_, are just too high."

She and Varnell leave, unconcerned with the state of the safehouse because who the fuck cares, anyway? This is Lowtown, after all, and the four filthy people they leave behind are heretics, low-lifes and nobody who can stand against them.

Speechlessly, Wil hands Anders the bag and he accepts it as a donation to his clinic. She has no plans of disappearing, into Lowtown or even Kirkwall itself. The Hawke women will reclaim their birthright in Hightown, and Bethany will be protected by more than just her sister's blade.

But they'll do it _without_ Petrice's tainted coin. It can find redemption in healing the poor, and Wil can cleanse herself of this association for as long as the sister keeps to herself. Which, admittedly, doesn't seem like a peace that can last.

"She's going to be trouble," Merrill muses.

It's truth, but next time _Wil_ won't be so easily played.

* * *

><p><strong>Note from SF:<strong> Ugh, long chapter is looooooong but I had a few awkward scenes that couldn't really go anywhere else, and Shepherding Wolves is my favorite non-companion quest in the game. And Petrice is well-written enough that I didn't want to omit a single, horrible detail!

Another note- this takes place immediately after the events of Cheeky, which is a short written and included in my one-shot collection As Is. If you want cute, conflicted and naked Anders, and haven't checked it out already, then you should. Not that I'm biased or anything...

Also, a quick thanks! to everyone for reading and reviewing!


	22. Just a Touch

**Note from SF:** This is a chapter that fills in a few gaps and bridges to the Deep Roads. The first two scenes take place almost immediately after Accomplishment and the last two are on the night after Appeasement.

* * *

><p>"Well, look who came by to say hello," Isabela acknowledges the lean silhouette of the woman lounging against the bar. "Excuse me. Should I be <em>flouncing<em> more?"

"Shut up," Hawke throws herself onto the nearest stool, which is three away from Isabela's. "I came to apologize."

_Apologize?_ This stops Isabela's emphasis shot in its tracks, a bit of whiskey sloshing out of the tumbler and onto her cleavage. Normally the sensation of cheap booze trailing its way between her breasts would be a fun way to start the evening, but right now she's taken aback.

"Only the _best_ apologies start with _shut up_," Isabela keeps her eyes down. "So far, so good."

"I brought you a present?" Without looking, Hawke places a slim manuscript on the bar and slides it as far as she can towards Isabela. "I hope you haven't read it yet."

_Hmmm._ Isabela palms it and drags it close. _The Maker's Blessed_. Below the sloppily printed title is a wood relief image of two priests, one bowing in prayer, the other positioned behind the first, lip bit and raising her skirts. _This has potential, and an appealing lack of subtlety._ She flips it open...

_One:_

_Sister Mariana, with her lops like ripe strawberries and an abudance of firm, snowy flesh, was a terrible bore. Stupid, too. This was why SIster Alouette, who was neither fruit lipped nor of firm, cold flesh, let her talk when they were in bed t ogether. To invite such a thing would ruin a perfectly adequate elicit love affair. _

_Until Alouette could figure out a way to seduce the Grand Cleric out of her miter and into the strappy leather bustier that Alouette had hidden amongst her Chantry robes and misused devotional candles, perfectly adequite would have to suffice._

_Plus, Mariana had a very long tongue. It sometimes tripped her during the recitation of the chant but to be honest, a flawless reading of the chant was the last thing Alouette wanted to here when she was straddling someone elses face. _

"You're forgiven," Isabela snaps the serial closed and scoots it to the side. "What'll you have?"

Hawke swings herself off of her stool to hop onto the the one beside Isabela. "Ale will do. Can I borrow it when you're done?"

Isabela laughs into her meaningless shot of whiskey. "How about you come up to my room...we can read to each other and act our favorite scenes...but only the filthy ones. Or the _really_ funny ones."

"That...sounds like fun," Hawke props herself against the bar. "But I left my leather priest costume at home, and it really wouldn't be the same without it."

"I would say that you could use mine...but I don't think we wear the same size. So maybe another time," Isabela wipes her mouth along the inside of her elbow. "Are you alone?"

"Not tonight...Varric and Beth are upstairs, and Anders is taking some clothes to our apartment for washing. His jacket's a little...corpse encrusted," Hawke smiles, her eyes rolling upward. "Come to think of it, I can't imagine Mother's going to be terribly all right with cleaning it for him."

"I know your uncle, Hawke," Isabela shudders to think of the man who is almost as much of a fixture at the Blooming Rose as she is. Standards aren't exactly a thing with her, but he somehow manages to be gloriously under the mark without even trying. "Something tells me he comes home covered in far worse than corpse juice on a regular basis."

"Bleargh." Clearly Hawke doesn't want to think about it. The bartender sets a foaming mug of ale in front of Hawke, his eyes dipping just below her shoulders and up before he turns away. "Did he just..."

"Maybe he doesn't recognize you in _clothes_?" Isabela looks the other woman over. She's in her typical non-armor best- snug black breeches, white tunic and knee-high boots. Normally Isabela would prefer more skin, but the tomboy thing works for Hawke.

"I should go up and talk to Varric...we'll be leaving in just a few days," Hawke seems vaguely stunned by this turn of events. "All Bartrand has to do is map the route to our entrance and secure rations. It's making me a bit nauseous, to be honest."

"You'll survive," Isabela stands and tugs Hawke from her perch on the stool. Then, with an arching of her eyebrow, "I'm going up with you." She twists her lips into a smirk and Hawke is already at a good natured wince, "Although...the bar might get _lonely_ without me."

* * *

><p>"...and, I swear this is true, that's when I tripped over Bianca. Just in time, I was able to grab her and spin around," Varric mimes holding his crossbow, bending at the knees with a cocky little grin on his face. "That Antivan prince couldn't even speak he was so shocked!"<p>

"So what did he do?" Bethany's hanging on every word he says, and realizes that her mouth is stretched in a wide, anticipatory smile. Varric has that effect on everyone, she tells herself. It's a skill.

"What he did is not fit for your ears, Sunshine," he laughs and stands straight. "But suffice it to say we got a fair price on that shipment, and he never tried to undersell us again!"

"Blah, blah, merchant stories," Isabela saunters into his rooms, hips swaying and eyes rolling. Dropping into the chair next to Bethany's, she props one elbow up on the mage's shoulder and smiles provocatively. "You should ask him about what he _writes_ about Antivan princes. Now _those_ are stories."

She begins to flip through a slender volume that Bethany recognizes from the market. Bethany hadn't bothered to pay too much attention when Mina had selected it from amongst the stacks of similarly haphazard scripts in the bookseller's stall. Now she catches at the words imprinted at the top of the page...

"_The Maker's Blessed_?" Her nose wrinkles. "Is it...do I even want to know what it's about?"

"I don't know, sweet thing. But I'd be more than happy to...fill you in," Isabela purrs, her fingers curling suggestively at the base of Bethany's neck and the younger woman can't deny that she feels several things along with the warmth of the pirate's skin against her own, but most of it is embarrassment, especially when she sees Varric's expression go almost _guilty_.

"_The Maker's Blessed _isn't even a good sort of awful," Varric's arms cross and he's shifting to indignant. "So many typos, and there's no way one woman could..." he stops himself before he can get caught in any more specific criticisms and it really does _nothing_ to help with all of Bethany's _blushing_.

Being in a room with Varric and Isabela is always a bit of a trial, to be honest. There's something about the energy between the two rogues, a worldliness that their other friends don't possess. Never does she feel her sheltered upbringing more than when she's with them, and never does she wish she could join in without squeaking, or having to ask embarrassing questions.

What was it last week? Her chest burns...she'd been dumb enough to ask Isabela about the difference between being with a man and a woman...in bed. Varric had choked on his cider upon hearing the explanation, Fenris and Anders finding spots on the ceiling to focus on while Mina growled her disapproval.

_And I _still_ don't understand it._ Her frown causes Varric to lift his brow in concern. The quick shake of her head she offers in response is as automatic as the relieved smile that spreads across his handsome face, and her heart is beating _way_ too fast all of a sudden because...

_What was _that_?_ Bethany stares at the table. _Did we just have a...moment?_

"Where's Hawke?" Varric heads towards the door, catching himself before he can make it to the hallway. "And is she wearing clothes?"

"In the pail closet," Isabela supplies cheerfully, leaning away from Bethany. "And...cover your ears, Sunshine," she doesn't wait for _anyone_ to cover their ears, "not for long, if _I_ can help it."

Varric thinks on it for a second before sighing out a _there's worse things in this world, I suppose_, and heading down to the bar to place their evening order. Bethany's eyes remain on the door several seconds after the dwarf disappears, and she imagines what it would be like to live in a tavern, to have throngs of drunks _and_ dinner just beyond your bedroom door. The Hanged Man isn't the kind of place she'd frequent in Lothering, mostly because even the high end taverns in Ferelden had been as much for dogs as humans and there could hardly be found a difference between master and pet amongst the seedier crowds.

But the Hanged Man...it was almost like home. Better than home, though, because...no Gamlen, and she had friends here and-

"So, Sunshine," Isabela intrudes upon her thoughts, face close to her own. "What do you say you lose a few hands to me tonight, I ask for my usual settlement, and you finally show off what you have going on under there." She gestures casually towards Bethany's low cut tunic and breeches, although something about the splay of Isabela's hand causes Bethany's legs to clamp together. "Oh, it's not for _my_ sake."

A moment passes and Bethany is as confused as she'd been at _men are good for one thing, women are good for six_. Then Isabela's fingers begin to twirl idly at her chest, one eyebrow up _in you know who I'm talking about_ and Bethany catches fire.

Not real fire, of course, but self-immolation couldn't be much worse than the embarrassment that engulfs her. Cheeks incandescent, she buries her face against hot palms, eyes shut tightly, as if she can will herself back to the safety of Gamlen's apartment, or even five minutes ago to a time before she knew that _Isabela_ knew that she might...want...to...

_Kill me now._

"Oh, it's not _that_ bad, sweet thing," Isabela toys with the hair trailing across Bethany's shoulders. "Even your sister finds him attractive, and we both know the waifs _she_ usually goes for."

This brings Bethany around, her hands falling away from her face. "But Mina's never...oh, Maker! Do you think _she_ knows?"

Isabela laughs, not in mockery but in genuine delight. "I very much doubt it, which is why we have a golden opportunity here..."

"A _what_?" Bethany rears back, her palms going up. "You know that I haven't...that I'm not that...what?" She's being watched by bemused chestnut eyes and suddenly...it doesn't matter. _I want to be normal, and being normal means silly crushes and doing silly things around them._ Her throat clenches. "But...he's my friend. And he doesn't even seem interested in..._anyone_."

Despite the hesitation in Bethany's voice, Isabela's in and she _knows_ it.

"Have you seen yourself lately? You're gorgeous and people like you," the pirate stands, hands on her hips, as she scrutinizes Bethany from part to toes. "_I_ can barely keep my hands off you."

Heat overtakes her again. "You _don't_ keep your hands off me!"

_shrug_

"I don't even know where to start!" Bethany sinks back into her chair. "How do you even let them know that you're interested?" The question is like the sun breaking across Isabela's face. "_Without_ nudity."

"You're no fun at _all_, little Hawke," she pouts.

"Why do I find that _incredibly_ reassuring?" Mina's at the door, arms across her stomach, and as far as Isabela's concerned, this is almost as good as Bethany asking for advice in the first place.

"_You_...," it's said with a toss of her dark hair, and an inviting sway of bountiful hips.

Mina responds with a smirk. "_Me_."

Closing the gap between them with three long strides, Isabela goes in hands first, her left up to catch Mina by the neck while the fingers of her right curl against the dip in Mina's tunic. Eyes widening in surprise, Mina's mouth is being pulled down to Isabela's before she can even protest to become something Bethany's not _entirely_ comfortable watching.

But she can't stop, either, because it's...she's never seen anyone kiss her sister before, outside of familial pecks on the cheek or forehead, and it's odd that Mina seems to know exactly what to do, eyes closed and jaw moving in acquiescence, when Bethany would no doubt be flailing right now.

The embrace lingers, several seconds longer than it _needs_ to, and only Anders arriving behind Mina, his face registering about four kinds of vaguely aroused envy, draws Isabela away, her fingertips fluttering down Mina's chest as her lips remain curved in satisfaction.

"What did you learn from that?" Isabela takes a few steps backwards, settling against the door to Varric's washroom.

"Learn?" Head cocked, Mina thinks it through. "A few things. The whiskey they serve here is _remarkably_ strong, I should start buying Chantry smut more often aaaand you smell good."

"I _smell_ good?"

"Yes," matter of fact. "Even better than Varric, and _he_ smells _far_ better than anyone who spends most of his time in a place that serves something called Trashbin Surprise! ought to." Mina meanders over to plop down beside Bethany, Anders following close behind and probably not aware of how his eyes guard Mina's backside. "I take it...not what I was _supposed_ to learn?"

"I was trying to express interest," Isabela slinks over and settles between the Hawke sisters, her ass propped on the edge of Varric's table. "Unambiguous, this-is-real, take-me-now-and-thank-me-later, _lust_." Bethany starts. "Or _love_...but you know me," she tilts forward to meet Mina's amused gaze. "It was lust."

"Oh, Bela," Mina deadpans. "This is so..._sudden_. Also, you _can't_ express interest in someone that you've _already_ propositioned. Unless it's love. But I _know_ you," her fingers tweak at the end of one of the laces that hang free from Isabela's tunic. "It _was_ lust."

"I think the awkwardness levels in the room have been exceeded," Bethany shoots her sister a disapproving glare for being so _flirtatious_, and in front of Anders.

"Now's the part where I ask why _Isabela_ is teaching _you_ how to express your interest in someone," Mina smirks. "What? You don't trust my advice?"

"Does there need to be a reason, besides wanting as many lovely things out there and _interested_ as humanly possible?" She tosses Bethany a conspiratorial wink before turning back to Mina. "Hawke, sometimes I think you don't know me at all. But then you apologize with terrible porn and I realize that I don't care."

_Thank the Maker that she can show some discretion_. Bethany smoothes back a stray strand of hair and twitches her shoulders in a noncommittal shrug. Mina's eyes betray suspicion but, once Varric returns with Merrill in tow, they all fall into their roles and Bethany is able to slip out of focus, to go back to quiet appreciation and consider whether there's more she wants than _this_.

* * *

><p>"Am I <em>that<em> obvious?" Bethany works at her lip while Isabela gives her tunic another sharp tug down. Bethany's breasts, not terribly confined at the best of times, are on the verge of spilling onto Varric's table. She's just grateful that they're alone. He's downstairs with Mina and the rest of their friends; tomorrow will be their last day in Kirkwall before they embark and Varric has insisted on a celebration.

"He called Fenris _Your Broodness_ and you giggled for almost five minutes straight," Isabela's eyes roll up. "Humping him at the bar would be _less_ obvious."

"But it was funny," she insists, aware of how much flesh she's exposing. It looms up at her, an expanse of peach narrowly bordered by wine colored silk. Mina had found this blouse for her in Hightown, sold by a chatty dwarven merchant who'd claimed it had been traded to him by the Hero of Ferelden herself. "Mina says you knew the Hero of Ferelden," she catches herself. "In a sense."

A dreamy smile blossoms across Isabela's face fueled by what seems an impossibly pleasant memory.

"I knew her," her fingers slip beneath the fabric at Bethany's shoulders and slide it down a half-inch further. "For the record, she was good for about a dozen things...but we had plenty of time to get there."

Then, as if realizing something of utmost importance, Isabela pulls the sleeves back up and encourages Bethany to do the same with the neckline.

"You don't need it, Sunshine," and this time her smile hints at pride and shame. "Maybe one night when you get back, when he's let you run your fingers through that glorious mane of chest hair and you want to show him your minxy side. Tonight is for letting him know that his is a glorious mane of chest hair that you want to touch." She settles into the chair beside Bethany, her boots creaking slightly as she crosses her ankles. "Although, if you happen to go in for _more_ than just a touch..."

Bethany's stomach heaves at the thought. Does she want to go in for _any_ touch? Was her interest in him like that, or was she just charmed? His easy manner, the selflessness he hid beneath smirks and allusions to shady connections that never seemed to rub off on him. _His chest hair._

"All right," she leans forward, her elbows pressed into the table. "I might be regret this but...what do we do next?"

Isabela stands again, hand on hip. "I tell Hawke you needed to lie down for awhile, then distract her with drinks...he'll come up to check on you. It's what he does."

Bethany's shoulders push back and she nods.

_This is going to be terribly awkward._ Isabela leaves the door ajar so Bethany can hear the voices wafting up from the main floor. When they'd left the gathering, Mina had been conferring with Aveline, no doubt detailing the incident with Petrice. _Sister_ Petrice. Her status had dug at Bethany, mostly because, whether Mina had realized it or not, she could see the tattered remains of her sister's faith being torn away with every hypocritical word the woman had uttered.

This morning her sister's sleep had been restless, her legs kicking at the space beneath Bethany's bed and small, pained yelps accompanying them. Bethany had joined her on the floor, one hand pressed against Mina's forehead to cool and comfort her, magic pluming beneath them until the tension that held her features rigid dissipated, making her able of real rest.

_Maybe getting out of Kirkwall for a while will be good for us_. Bethany leaves the familiarity of her favorite chair and settles on the bed, tentative. Despite the comfort of the mattress as it gives beneath her weight and the luxurious sensation of the silken coverlet against her palms, Bethany cannot make herself lie down. She's knows the stories about princesses, about women in towers asleep or pining for their prince or their knight to come and kiss them alive, or rescue them.

She's not assertive. She's not her sister, who is more akin to the princes and knights in tales and songs. But she's also not going to feign physical vulnerability when she's already feeling out of her depth. It might be sexy to _present_ herself, hair fanned across his pillow, eyes drawn barely closed and body held at exactly the right position to incite unbidden lust at the sight of her full breasts and long, slender legs. It might be sexy, but it isn't really how she wants him to see her.

Which, problematic from a _seduction_ standpoint, but she's not certain seduction is something she should just jump into.

Instead she waits. After five minutes of being alone, it's clear to her that Isabela's plan is not going to work and she's relieved because she has no idea what she's going to do, or how she'll play it off, this sitting primly on the edge of his bed in a pretty silk shirt.

_This is going to be terribly awkward._ Bethany chews on her lip. It _shouldn't_ be awkward...it's Varric. Outside of dealing with his brother, Varric exudes non-awkwardness. He negates awkward, unless it's Mina's awkward and nobody is _that_ good.

Or maybe he is, the door falling open and his broad silhouette framed against the hazy lamplight of the hallway beyond.

"Are you all right, Sunshine?" Just as Isabela had predicted, his voice rich with concern as he closes the door behind him and joins her on the edge of the bed, a gentlemanly amount of distance between them because..._Varric_.

It's what he does.

And what does _she_ do? She can't say anything besides _of course I feel_...and then raise one hand to seek out his chest, the solid mass of it against her palm a surprise, as is the coarse texture of the wheat-colored curls generously dusted along its chiseled planes.

_Warm, too_, she thinks and getting warmer because_ Maker's breath_ he's turning almost the same shade as her blouse, surprise flickering in his hazel eyes and, for the first time since she met him, he doesn't know what to say.

_Please don't say anything._ Now she should kiss him, she should put her mouth on his mouth and not give him a chance to ask what she's doing or why..._isn't it obvious?_

One hand wraps itself around her own, strong, square-tipped fingers slipping between skin and it's defeat and relief, or maybe the other way around.

"Sunshine," it's the most sincerely he's ever said this name, and it's uttered with the faintest amount of disappointment. But not in _her_. "I should be so lucky."

"I'm..." she snatches her hand back, burying it between her knees as though hiding it will erase what it had done. "I don't know."

He's kind enough to not ask what _that_ non-sequitor is all about. Instead he pulls gently on her arm, urging her to relinquish her rogue hand in absolution.

"Your sister's downstairs, drinking like a fish and flirting with Aveline as if it's her job," he starts with an un-Varric like amount of uncertainty. "And every now and again she darts these looks at Blondie that break my heart."

Bethany knows the looks of which he speaks. "Why do they break your heart? I think it's cute."

"Because it's too soon." He leaves this unvarnished.

"Too soon? Who are you to...oh," heat spreads across her chest, her stomach feeling near the soles of her feet. "I...think I get it."

"Why do you think I tell so many stories about other people, Sunshine? My life...isn't something I want to share. It suits _me_ fine, being who I am in my family and in Kirkwall, but it's a lot of lying and abuse doled out and taken in silence," his eyes shimmer in the dim torchlight. "I like that you smile when you see me, and that Hawke feels comfortable enough here to pass out when life gets to be too much. It's what I..." he stops, not searching for a word, or struggling through emotions. He's still as Varric as ever, despite the weight of the subject pressing down on them. "It's a delicate balance, and I'm still perfecting it. Until I do..."

Bethany smiles, uncertain how he's managed to calm things within her with just that small bit of explanation. "And it will probably be a dwarven lass, too. All curves and brass."

He laughs warmly. "Rivaini's got me admitting the appeal of certain human appendages, but I still find _Hawke's_ legs to be a conundrum. An explanation was offered...I refused," he sucks his breath in. "For obvious reasons."

"Isabela is the reason I'm even in _here_," one freshly polished boot kicks at the floor. "And now she's going to want to know what happened."

"But a lady never tells!" His eyebrows are high on his forehead. "Fortunately...you don't _have_ to be a lady..."

He leans in closer, details to the plot they will weave plucked from the air around them with as little effort as it takes Bethany to summon flames at her fingertips. It is a skill he has, she realizes, and one he'd just used on her.

But she doesn't feel lied to, or embarrassed, or _placated_. Instead she's glad to have gotten the tiniest bit of experience under her belt...and to have not made a complete mess of it on her maiden voyage.

There's always next time, and something strangely freeing about imagining such.

* * *

><p>"Oh, and <em>Mina<em>," Bethany leans unsteadily against her sister before she attempts up the stairs to their apartment. "Just so you know...Isabela is going to think that Varric and I were-"

She interrupts herself with a drunken lurch, and Wil is barely able to catch her before she hits the ground. Then it's the _giggling_ that makes it difficult to hang on while Bethany struggles to get her feet back beneath her, her boots sliding across the ground as if it's made of ice. Aveline steps in and, together, they're able get her upright.

It's clearly not going to last much longer...Aveline's arm latches onto her waist and holds her so she can finish explaining, which Wil would _really_ like to happen.

"I touched his chest hair," her finger goes to Anders' face. "_Jealous?_ Anyway," one hip wobbles out dangerously and Aveline responds by scooping her off the ground.

"Get it out, Bethany."

"We're telling Isabela that we...did stuff," her feet kick at the air. "But we didn't."

"That's..._good_," Wil shares a bemused glance with Aveline. "I'll be up in a few minutes, and maybe you can give me an explanation that makes sense?"

"Okaaaaaay!" Her head falls back, pushing the boundaries of Aveline's strength and coordination.

"You can't hold me responsible if I drop her, Hawke" Aveline begins up the stairs. "And don't take too long. I want to know more about this incident with the qunari."

_Incident_. Wil nods and watches as her fellow warrior navigates the porch, kicking the door open and easily maneuvering past the frame without knocking Beth unconscious.

"Could you make any sense of that?" She half laughs as she turns back to Anders. "Did she say...she touched Varric's chest hair?"

"That's what I heard," a smile flickers across his face, highlighting the exhaustion evident in his eyes. "And I _am_ jealous. That's a fine thatch he has."

Wil returns her gaze to the apartment, thinking over the past few days and how Varric and her sister have seemed so comfortable together. But _never_ would she have guessed that Bethany would pursue him.

_She wouldn't...not without urging._

"So that's why Isabela kissed me the other night," Wil's lips push out at the memory. "I mean...not that I was looking for a reason." Anders clears his throat, less amused by _this_ line of conversation. "Beth and Varric? Cute. But...I've not really...well, you're the only person I'd ever thought about her being _with_."

To say Anders is shocked by this revelation would be an understatement. His mouth hangs open and _everything_.

_Cuter than Beth and Varric._

She taps her finger against the underside of his chin before his jaw can become permanently unhinged.

"You thought that...me and _Bethany_?" He takes a seat on the steps, his arms hugging his knees. "_Why?_"

Incapable of talking downward AND keeping her balance, Wil settles next to him, not quite certain how to explain without sound insane.

"You're both apostates? And pretty. So I figured that you could, I don't know, be pretty apostates together?" She cringes. "I wasn't going to force it, but if it happened...I-"

"You'd be all right with that?" Anders is caught between residual disbelief, bemusement and...hurt. His eyes are wounded, which she hadn't expected.

"I'd be all right with her being with someone I trusted," her fingers push nervously through her hair and she can't meet his gaze. "Someone who'd never betray her to the templars, or throw the fact that she's mage in her face...someone who'd understand the dangers and not resent her." Her hands twist together and steal her focus. "And she'd not resent herself...thinking that she's stealing someone else's freedom to keep her own."

"You think about those things," it's a statement, and the undercurrent of awe and..._is it desire? or something more?_ is undeniable.

"Yeah, when other girls our age were sitting on the steps of the chantry looking at boys and picking out which ones they were going to marry, Beth and I imagined an elaborate life for ourselves," she snorts. "It involved living in a cottage in the woods, spending a lot of time tending the garden in low-cut blouses and wooing travelers inside with promises of baked goods and sex. I got the idea from a book I was probably too young to be reading, but I always thought it sounded like fun." Her palms slide down her thighs and over her knees to hook around her shins. "But then again, I _really_ like baked goods and sex."

Anders doesn't respond right away and the silence stretches almost awkwardly between them before he can find his voice, his phrasing precise enough to not give _too_ much away.

"What happens to _you_ when Bethany marries? Would you take the opportunity to run off and marry your elf?" He gestures to her neck, still marked from the morning before.

Careful to not _protest_, Wil laughs and holds up her hand in the shape of a nought. "I can't see myself marrying _anyone_, and Sorrell...isn't," she doesn't want to elaborate, but it _happens_. "He was letting me use him, hoping I'd come around. And maybe I would have," her shoulders hunch forward and she squints against the unnaturally bright moonlight. "But probably not."

"You ended it then?" He can't hide his relief.

_"Ended it_," it's full of self-loathing. "No, I dumped him like a jerk and will probably regret it in a few years when I'm a regular at the Rose, avoiding eye contact with _everyone_ and waiting for my favorite whore to be available."

"You can say Jethann," it comes out too achy to be _just_ a joke. "Which...I think he might be the only one of them I haven't treated, so go with Jethann if you're _seriously_ considering a whore addiction."

If she's being honest, Jethann is a little close to home, but there _are_ happier things to discuss.

"So not a wife. But I would be an awesome aunt, I think. Crazy Aunt Wil?" She sits upright and flexes her arms. "I bet I could cart around at least four magelings at a time...let them crawl all over me and set my clothes on fire. Get them to that point of being incredibly cranky-hyper and then send them home to Mum and Pop while I retire to my shack on the edge of the property."

This seems to charm him, his smile back and edging closer to a smirk.

"What if Pop wanted to visit Crazy Aunt Wil in her shack on the edge of the property?"

Wil's vision blurs slightly, her throat tight with the implications _and wouldn't that be something? _"For baked goods, I hope. There _is_ a beloved sister involved here...and possibly magelings."

"Therein lies the problem," his hand bumps against her knee and withdraws. It's an echo of a moment months past, and she wonders if they've made _any _headway, or if it's all been walking in place.

His eyes remain locked on hers, hauntingly dark in the moonlight that also amplifies the pallor of his skin and the uneven shading of that not-quite a beard along his gaunt cheeks. It doesn't sound like much, but there's _something_ about it...

"I like your face." That's definitely not headway, and embarrassing to boot.

"I figured as much, when you called me _pretty_," he leans away, his expression like falling, even though his lips retain a ghost of their flattered grin. "It's a dangerous face to like."

"Oh?" She pretends to examine it from a distance, determined to at least cheer him back before his inevitable departure. "I can see how it might chafe...and there are _definitely_ some sharp spots. So snags would be an issue. But in the plus column...you're a healer!"

He wavers, then shakes his head. "I have so much to do...I should have spent the evening in the clinic preparing poultices and cleaning up my references instead of out watching your friends get drunk." The breath he draws next is shaky. "I can't say I'm looking forward to this, Wil. The Deep Roads are a nasty place, full of...dirty _beastly_ things and tight, dark spaces."

Were it anyone else, she'd laugh at the _melodrama_.

"You don't have to go," it's a legitimate out. "I know you want to move on anyway. And Fenris _did_ offer...he's capable enough."

So maybe she doesn't want it to seem _too_ appealing.

"The only thing worse than going down there myself is thinking about _you_ down there without me," he frowns. "Justice just called me a fool."

_Dammit, Justice._

"How's this?" She stands and he joins her before she can offer aid. "I fight the dirty beastly things and keep you out of tight, dark spaces as much as I can, and you heal my gashes and warn me when I'm about to wander into a lava flow."

"You make it sound so easy," his shoulders dip and his brow knits in admiration. "No need to worry."

She reaches up, her hand almost trembling as she brushes it along his cheek, her fingers pushing away a loose strand of blond hair. It's just a touch, meant to reassure and not incite. And it seems to work that way...for him.

"Easy," she confirms with a crooked smile and withdraws so he can leave.

_Easy_, she repeats to herself as she watches him go, her fingers till tingling from the feel of his cool skin sliding beneath them and the way his hair had been surprisingly soft against her knuckles. _One of these days, something _has_ to be. _


	23. Screwed

_My Dearest Aveline,_

_Because you asked so nicely, I decided I could indulge your maternal tendencies and let you know that we've arrived at the Deep Roads' entrance safely. After a week of bouncing around in an ox-cart with Beth clinging to my knee and Anders grabbing my arm every few feet, I'm almost relieved that we will be walking from here on out. I will mark the days until I withdraw that sentiment. I'm guessing...two._

_So far our trip has been slightly less horrible than a typical carta raid. Bartrand continues to be cruel, insufferable and I'm beginning to question my commitment to the word fuck, he uses it so often and so casually. It's started to lose its charm. Varric is clearly not thrilled by his brother's behavior, and we've taken to running away from our post-dinner beratements to mimic him at our leisure. It's not mature, but it might be the only reason he yet lives. _

_My mages are all nerves this evening. We're camping at base of the doors into the Deep Roads, massive foreboding things that seem better fit to guard a tomb than a civilization. Anders turned away dinner and, despite it being well after midnight, Beth has just now fallen asleep. A rest I doubt will last. _

_I almost wish I'd left them both in Kirkwall. Leandra might have been right. This is my expedition, _my_ responsibility. Anders insisted he come, but Beth...she would have stayed had I told her to, if I had enough faith that the templars would leave her alone. I only hope that my insistence that everything will be fine doesn't come to bite me._

_(All right. We both know that my insistence that everything will be fine is going to bite me. Instead, I'll hope it's only me it bites, and not Beth. Once we get back to Kirkwall, I'll buy her new boots and perhaps get Anders a kitten. That should make up for any trauma gained, right?)_

_Maker's ass. Beth is mewling a bit, which means I should be a sister and sing her back to sleep or something. Hopefully this letter makes it to you, so you know that I at least cared this much. _

_On top of being madly in love with you, of course. _

_I Promise to (try to) Make it Back (mostly) Alive,  
>Hawke<em>

* * *

><p>The first thing Wil says when Varric asks her what she thinks about the Deep Roads: "I certainly feel a bit <em>dwarfed<em>!"

The second thing, after everyone has rolled their eyes and declared that pun an executable offense: "But I think they're killing Anders."

It's not entirely true. He's walking. As a matter of fact, that's all he's doing.

Brand...

_The Commander._

The last time he'd camped in the Deep Roads, _the Commander_ had told him how she'd made it to Ostagar after the loss of her entire family in one, horrible night...she'd just kept walking. It seemed simple enough. There's purpose in walking towards something. Progress made, even if only inches at a time, and a finish ahead, even if it can't be seen.

_"It beats thinking," she murmurs against his throat. Camp is in what had once served as barracks for the Kal'hirol guard. With Sigrun and Nathaniel on watch and the others sleeping, they'd managed to find an empty room where they could spread their bedrolls side by side and stretch out alongside the other. It's risky, being together like this, but her face is his anchor in this place, the only reason why he hasn't yet given into the panicky, panic-capped waves of panic within him. _

_"You know what else beats thinking?" He palms one of her breasts, dragging his thumb across the nipple peaking through a thin linen breast band._

_Instead of responding how she'd _normally_ respond to the suggestion of sex with anyone, but especially him, Brand's-_

The Commander. And these thoughts are not-

Brand's_ eyes are guarded. "This place is disgusting. There are _bones_ in the corner."_

_"You certainly didn't seem to care about disgusting when you tore me out of my _robes_," the corner of his mouth twitches as he relocates his hand, slipping it resolutely between her thighs and not holding anything back as a blast of magic causes her back to arch her hips clear off the ground. "It's either this or listen to me whimper in my sleep all night."_

_"All right," she gasps, one heavily scarred leg going up to catch him around the waist. "Flames. The things I do to keep you _happy_."_

_"Sacrifices on top of sacrifices," it's bone dry, but he can't complain. He'd not been lying about the whimpering, and being with someone who could distract him in about a hundred ways with her fingers alone was almost enough to beat back the encroaching Void dark dread that had set itself upon him._

At the very least, it's a distraction for when he _can't_ be walking. But he shouldn't indulge for long, remembering. There are pitfalls, traps, Justice all but crossing his arms and stamping his feet in disapproval when they stop for a rest and he keeps his lunch down by mentally reliving a single, lusty night for the tenth time that morning.

And there's _guilt_. Still. Should he feel guilty? When he hears Wil say that she thinks the Deep Roads are killing him, he's washed in gratitude that she's noticing and worried. And then...guilt. Should he think of _her_ instead? _Could_ he?

Merely _imagining_ imagining makes him ache.

"Let's get back on our sodding way," Bartrand's ready and, when Bartrand's ready, _everybody_ is ready. He pushes by Anders, jostling him without so much as an apologetic glance back. The mage's pack falls from his shoulder, sending several poultices skittering across the carved stone at his feet.

"It's not like we need those or anything," Wil snaps at Bartrand's retreating form and receives a rude gesture in response. "Andraste's ass, they don't have a word in the common tongue foul enough to describe that man."

"Then string a bunch together," Anders drops the three bottles he'd reclaimed into his pack and holds it open so Wil can add her four. "Or resort to another language...I'm sure Orlesian is full of colorful phrases designed to emasculate and enrage."

"Orlesian! Of course! They've turned rudeness into an art form," she hoists up his bag. "I can strap this to your back...unless you're going to stop carrying your staff."

Reflexively, his hand reaches for the golden rod that's propped against a near wall. He's been using it to strike steps against the stone as it passes beneath his feet, putting ever more distance between himself and the sky. He'd had a staff as nice as this one before, one purchased by his commander in Amaranthine after she'd failed to secure his phylactery. Actually...Spellbound had been more powerful, and less conspicuous. But it hadn't meant much outside of _Anders, you're my favorite. _

Not that being someone's favorite wasn't nice, but now that he knows how meaningless that favoritism had turned out to be...

_She had more to worry about than your...needs._

He grits his teeth against Justice and wills himself to remember how flattered he'd been when Leandra had suggested he take her late husband's staff. Although _yes_ it _is_ weird to have what is clearly Leandra's naked torso hovering over his head, it's symbolic of what life could be like if mages were allowed to have families and to celebrate their magic as it passed from father to daughter, or mother to son. This staff could be an heirloom, carried proudly for generations with the tale of its origins a family legend.

_What will your role in its history be?_

_Temporary at most._ He turns so Wil can secure his bag, forcing his attention away from the sorrow that sours his stomach at the notion of _temporary_. She pats his arm when she's finished, two times, and stays close as they hurry to catch up with the rest of the expedition, Bethany and Varric hanging behind the others but still far ahead.

He's not counting steps now, nor just walking, nor thinking about his commander. Instead, he realizes that she touches him all the times, and never does she hesitate or cringe when she does so. _He_ touches so many people when he's healing, yet she's the only person who...

"Hey," her fingers are on his wrist, his blood rushing to greet them. "Are you contemplating a sudden stone nap? Also, you are so _sweaty_."

Anders struggles for a moment, not wanting to betray too much embarrassment because it's neither fear nor panic that has him heated.

"I'm...," _thinking dangerous thoughts that will only lead to a very long, very frustrated night_. "I'm fine, Wil."

She lets go, but remains unconvinced. "All right...but remember what I said. If you need anything."

"Not at the moment," he gives his robes a quick tug and half-smiles. "Although, my feet _are_ starting to get sore..."

Green eyes flutter upward. "I can clear out a spot for you in the supply cart, if you'd like. Right next to Bartrand's chamberpot."

He laughs. It's loud, unexpectedly, and it draws Varric's attention, the dwarf's head turning back to check on them and then shaking as Bethany makes a silent comment.

"So you're _not_ offering your services as mage transport on this expedition," his shoulders straighten and his voice lowers to a murmur. "Disappointing. I should have put it on my list of demands."

It earns him an affectionate push against his shoulder, and it's all he can do to stop himself from catching her hand in his as it drops. He can't be with her they way he'd been with Brand, back in the barracks of Kal'hirol, but at this point in his life even walking with fingers chastely entwined would be enough to help.

* * *

><p>"What do you sodding mean there's a sodding <em>collapse<em>?" Bartrand's voice echoes in the rubble strewn cavern.

_Yes, let's announce our presence to the darkspawn_. Wil's soul aches from the restraint necessary to not punch him in the face.

"I sure as _shit_ haven't trekked ten sodding days to be stopped _now_," one booted foot kicks at a stone block that's slightly taller than he is. "By my ancestor's saggy ass _tits_, if I wanted to waste half my sodding life in this place, I would've moved to sodding Orzammar."

His pale blue eyes fix on Varric, blame radiating from the snarl that twists his features.

"So you're...a month old?" Wil pretends to calculate it on her fingers. "Well that would certainly explain the _bellyaching_."

One of the haulers traveling with them hazards an appreciative snort from behind her, which earns him a rock the size of Wil's fist hurled at his head.

It misses, but Wil catches the scent of Anders' magic wafting from behind her. He's had to discreetly heal most of the expedition hirelings during their slow descent. Bartrand's temper is manifesting itself in increasingly violent ways and even the most suspicious of their fellow travelers is will allow the wild-eyed mage to treat them.

"Come on, brother," Varric's voice is smooth as ever, but Wil can see the strain in the creases that mar his forehead. "Are we really going to let a silly little _collapse_ stand in our way? Don't you know why I sought out a partner like _Hawke_?"

Wil waggles her fingers in Bartrand's direction, a saucy wave after her open sass. She really should _not_ taunt him like this, but she'd vastly prefer she were the target of his rage than any of the others.

"Have sword, will kill most anything if it gets you to shut the fuck up and stop abusing your men," her mouth stretches into an absurd smile. "Skinny, too. Can wedge myself into cracks and stuff."

Bartrand attempts a murderous glare, but he catches himself before he can accomplish mental evisceration. For some reason, despite his non-existent fuse, Wil can't quite get him to ignite. "Are you saying my scouts are incompetent, _human_? According to them, there's no way through."

_Human. Oh, ouch. _

"No," her voice is coated in exaggerated patience. "I'm saying that _I'm_ better at this sort of thing than they are. Let me take Varric, Beth and Anders, and we'll see if one of those side tunnels circumvent the collapse."

The dwarf is skeptical but with the expedition already a few days behind and the Deep Roads a far more dire place than any of them, save Anders, had been expecting, nobody wants to linger here until someone comes up with a better plan.

"Sod it all," he punches the nearest boulder and comes away with bleeding knuckles. "Fine. Go if you want to. But you only take the supplies that are on you. If you get killed down there, I don't want to lose the rations if we don't have to."

The look Varric shoots her as they break away from the rest of the party is a desperate one. As soon as they're out of earshot, he's working out his Bartrand impersonation and it's not until Anders grabs her wrist and wheels her around that she realizes they're being followed.

At first, in the dark of the cavern, she thinks it might be Bartrand himself come to beat her in private. Then the figure reveals itself as someone whose sole resemblance to Bartrand is his race.

"Ah, excuse me," the merchant Bodahn is twisting his fingers nervously against his stomach, his eyes glinting in the dim light before Bethany's staff flares and illuminates their portion of the tunnel. "Oh," he bobs his head towards the younger Hawke in gratitude. "Thank you, miss. That does make it slightly less sinister down here."

He smiles tightly, but it stays lipbound. Wil hasn't spoken to him all that much, finding his ingratiating manner...well, grating. Anders seems to have taken a liking to him, however, and the older dwarf is the only one outside of the four of them that he seeks out for conversation.

"Do you need something, Bodahn?"

"Yes, well...it seems that Messere Tethras', ah, outburst didn't sit too well with my boy Sandal," he freezes for a second as his brow crumples. The moment passes and he's able to continue without breaking. "I'm afraid I wouldn't be much use in these tunnels, looking for him, but if you could..."

"You want us to look for your son?" Wil searches her memory to see if she can recall catching the blond youth darting into the shadows. "Do you know which direction he went?"

"I think he headed this way?" Bodahn indicates the path they're on. "If you could find him and tell him to come back to me, I'd be ever so grateful. It would be so easy for him to get lost down here, you know, and he's..."

Wil knows enough about the pair to realize Bodahn's worry is genuine and _of course_ she doesn't want Sandal to end up in a spider's belly.

"I promise to bring him back in one piece," she tries to cheer him up. "Maybe two. You never know..." the man's forehead creases in concern. "Or _maybe_ he'll find us a way around the collapse and be the hero of this entire expedition!"

Bodahn seems preemptively proud of such a scenario and he shuffles off without an admonishing word about her rather tacky attempt at humor.

"I don't know how much luck we'll have, Wil," Anders has moved further down the tunnel and, once they've caught up to him with Bethany's light, even she can see the shadows in his eyes, and the sheen of sweat that coats his bone white skin.

"Do you sense them?" Her hand is one her sword, her nerves automatically steeling themselves.

Anders nods.

Behind him, Varric is unfolding Bianca, murmuring quiet words of encouragement.

"You've been nothing but a lady since we came down here," he pats her stock with affection. "Now's your chance to take your Bartrand-hate out on some darkspawn."

* * *

><p><em>It's getting colder.<em>

_Bethany's fingers rake through the dry soil as she harvests the last of the late potatoes. It doesn't bother her to do this by hand; the garden is her distraction and the small annual yield from it her contribution to the household._

_It's either garden or hunt, and she doesn't care much for killing anything, especially if said anything has adorable, wavery eyes and a twitchy little nose. She doesn't even like to fish, and what are fish but finny weird things that nibble at her legs when she and Mina go swimming?_

_Her throat tightens, her fingers curling hard into the ground, which is growing colder by the second, and at her own bidding. Word from the south has been nothing but dire for weeks...ever since Loghain and his men had come through, followed by conflicting reports of what had really happened at Ostagar. All that seems certain is that King Cailan is dead, and thouasands of soldiers massacred with him._

_That Mina and Carver could be amongst the fallen...she blinks back tears before they have a chance to dampen her cheeks. _They're fine. I would know if they were dead. I'd...just know.

_It gets her through. It's gotten her through since the morning they'd left. It had been difficult to hide her resentment at having been left behind...abandoned in her loneliest moments, when all she wanted was her sister. While she might understand, in theory, how fighting now might save them all later, being alone and not knowing is... _but you do know. They're fine.

_"Fine," she repeats to herself, carefully warming her hands to thaw the recently frozen soil, and that's when she hears it._

_It's a toothaching noise, like a rusty hinge on a door that's being drawn open with excruciating slowness. Metallic. There are other sounds, too, moist sounds and whispering...but not a language she knows or even a language that should exist...something evil that winds its way past her ears and into her very blood._

_Whatever it is, it's behind her. She can smell it, the overwhelming odor of decay, of dark, airless places and of corruption. It takes sense from her, it takes everything that isn't the mad desire to run away from the vile blackness invading her lungs._

_Even the Chant escapes her now._

_She turns slowly, as if this is the Fade and she's being watched by demons, every shadow a potential temptation that could turn her into a vessel for its mayhem. Dirt crumbles from her fingers as she summons a spell that should stagger anything smaller than a bear. If there's only one, and if she can focus long enough to hit it, she should have enough time to run to the house._

I'm twenty steps from the back doo_r, it blurs in the corner of her vision as she continues the deliberate confrontation. _I'm fast, if I can keep my feet from tangling.

_The creature snarls._

_She raises her eyes, although they don't want to go._

_Her first thought:_ Is this what Mina fought? Is this what she's protecting me from now?

_Her second though:_ shitshitshitshitshit

_It's ghastly and wounded, one arm swinging from its shoulder by frayed tendon and black clots streaming down the scorched gauntlet. But that does nothing to diminish its menace, nor distract from the jagged sword it wields in its good hand._

_She's frozen, the spell flickering but mostly dead on her fingers and she's too busy staring into the empty, hopekilling eyes of a monster and being lost in an endless black tunnel, alone, and _Maker, Maker, it's coming for me and I can't mo-

_"Bethany!"_

_She never sees Mina coming, only hears her and catches the flash of her iron blade as it intersects the darkspawn, driving deep into the creature's exposed stomach._

_"There's about ten more on their way. Get to the house, Beth," she turns and she's somehow years older than Bethany remembers even though it's only been months. But the flash of sympathetic frustration when Bethany refuses her command that she get to the house is as familiar as breath._

_"I can do this, Mina," she summons fire this time, flames sizzling across her skin. "Just like we practiced."_

_"I-," her sister's chin lifts for a moment but the protest dies on her lips. Instead, she turns to Carver_ Carver!_ who has a few seconds to_

_"Hello, Bethy. Nice day to be gardening."_

_before Mina is telling him to go inside with Mother and start gathering their belongings._

_When he does as told without a single smartass remark in protest, Bethany knows exactly how much they've gone through to get here._

_"All right, Beth," Mina's eyes are glued to the tree line that edges their property. "You don't want to get any of their blood on you. It'll make you sick."_

_Bethany turns and stares at her sister; she's coated in it herself._

_"But you're-!"_

_"I know, I know," she smiles sunnily. "But what have I always said?"_

_"So many things I'm not _about_ to repeat right here," Bethany retorts, inexplicably overwhelmed with adoration._

_"The Maker, for whatever reason, watches over fools."_

_"But I'm..."_

_"Not a fool," the smile has disappeared and her eyes are as earnest as Bethany's ever seen them. "So, please, Beth. Be careful...I didn't fight all this way to end up with a dead sister."_

* * *

><p>The darkspawn are like giant, malevolent ants spilling nonstop from a harassed nest.<p>

"There's another wave. I can...feel them coming," Anders is on his hands and knees, breath ragged as he gathers the strength to continue fighting. He'd used too much of his mana healing Mina's thigh where a hurlock had managed to slip its blade past her leather greaves, and it had only aggravated his existing exhaustion. They've been fighting for hours, pockets of darkspawn around every corner.

And Bethany's head...her eyes fall shut but she can still see it, the blue veins on the wall, glowing softly with power that would be hers if only she could _touch_ it. Without thinking, her hand stretches towards the wall.

"Dammit, Bethany!" Mina's at her arm, pulling her away with hard, worried eyes. "The last thing I need is for you to go mad from lyrium exposure."

Anders moans.

"_Dammit_, Anders," Mina guides Bethany to where Varric is standing in a blessedly lyrium free portion of the tunnel before she marches back to where Anders is now rocking back and forth on his hands and knees. "I'm going to carry you out of here."

"No," his voice is hoarse and he stops moving. "I can't...between the darkspawn, Justice and this lyrium. My head feels as if it's going to _ungh_," his elbows give so that his forehead is pressed against the ground, his fingers digging into the grit and gravel that litter it. "Wil...just leave me."

"Oh, stop being so _dramatic_," it's lightly said, but Bethany can see her face tense with worry. "And I'll forgive you for temporarily forgetting who you're talking to."

"It's not that easy," he tries to stand, but fails. It's almost as if the ground wants to hold him captive.

"If I let _it's not that easy_ stop me...well, a lot would have gone undone in my life," she catches him beneath the armpits and eases him off his hands. They can't coordinate his feet with her pulling, so she finally commands him to use _her_ to steady himself as he stands on his own.

It works. Bethany can see him press a filthy cheek against her stomach to regain his bearings, hands clinging to her hips as he struggles to his feet, still holding her but no longer quite as lost to that within and without him.

No, if anything he's wholly found, his eyes on her sister as his fingers twist in the loose ends of the red scarf she wears tied around her waist. Bethany knew before they'd descended that Anders was only here to protect Mina, and that Mina had promised to keep him as safe as she could, from himself as much as anything else. But to see it so nakedly...he'd only overhealed out of his fear for her safety; infection or corruption in this place a death sentence.

And now...Bethany has been watching it happen for the past few months, her sister and this strange apostate and the way he's drawn to her and no one else, and the way he brings something out in her that Bethany thought only she, and perhaps Carver, would _ever_ see.

_She loves him._ And, like seeing Mina kissing Isabela a few weeks ago in the Hanged Man, it's uncomfortable and fascinating to Bethany that her sister, of all people, could just _do_ that. Fall in love. _And with an abomination._

"Wait," Anders staggers back, although one hand remains caught in Mina's scarf. "The darkspawn..." he moves away, carefully walking down the center of the corridor, the aqua light of the lyrium veins seeming to glow from within him. "They're...dead."

He begins to run; Mina gestures for Varric to follow before she takes off after him.

Bethany and the dwarf stay close to one another. Like Anders, she holds herself as far away from the lyrium infused walls as she can, despite the way it murmurs in her blood, making it itch beneath skin. She will _not_ be tempted to turn against her sister, her friends, by its strange urging, so much like a mute demon within her.

Instead, she presses forward. Up ahead there's a narrowing of the cavern; it's darker there and Anders and Mina have disappeared.

"We have to hurry, Sunshine," Varric runs faster and pulls, all but dragging her through what turns out to be a tunnel that connects the room they just left with another, larger cavern.

Mina and Anders are stopped, shoulder to shoulder, and both turning to assess the piles of dead darkspawn that litter the ledge floor in front of them. There's nearly a hundred hurlocks that Bethany can see, and possibly more beyond a precipitous drop off.

"Well I'll be a nug's uncle," Varric muses from beside her. "Bodahn's boy."

Indeed, Sandal is standing at the epicenter of the bloodless slaughter, staring at Mina as she gets over her shock enough to approach him.

"Sandal...how in the Maker's name did you kill all of these darkspawn yourself?"

"_Boom?_" He offers up his hand, and Bethany can see the faint glow of a rune.

"I didn't hear any _boom_," Anders is halfway between amazed and skeptical. "But I'm not going to argue with these results...or _that_."

He points to an ogre in mid attack, frozen on the spot several feet away from where Sandal had been waiting.

"Well, Bodahn _did_ say the you were good at enchantments," Mina's head shakes when the boy echoes _enchantment_ in his strange, awed voice. "And he's worried about you. I think we've cleared this passage out completely, and there are no branching tunnels. Go back to your father, Sandal. And try not to wander off again. You're making me look bad."

A ghost of a smile touches his lips, but he does as instructed, shuffling wordlessly past Bethany and Varric while Mina begins to poke at the corpses strewn around them.

"I'm almost afraid they're going to come back to life...but if Anders can't sense them, I guess we'll just have to move on," she looks ahead. The path they're on is taking them back towards what appears to be dwarven construction and not more lyrium mines. "And I don't see how getting you and Beth away from the crazy making can hurt matters."

Normally, she might be offended. But Mina is right...this lyrium isn't doing anything but ratcheting up the tension already caused by this place.

And they _definitely_ don't need any more of _that_.

* * *

><p>Bartrand <em>should<em> be happy.

Varric watches him from their fire at the edge of camp. His brother is cagy as ever, perhaps even more so now that they've actually made it to the thaig he's all but sold his soul to find. He's pacing like an angry bronto, veering out of his path any time anyone comes near him so he can knock against them and then yell that they got in his way on purpose and _can't you sodding see? Incompetent assholes, the lot of you!_

Sighing, Varric turns back to the conversation at hand. Hawke and Sunshine are trading Carver stories, this one about the battle at Ostagar where the king of Ferelden had met his gruesome end, betrayed by his own father-in-law and left for the darkspawn to desecrate.

He did love a good betrayal story...the more he felt like he'd been personally kicked in the gut, the better the tale.

_Hawke's_ version of events are slightly less betrayal heavy, unless one were to count sleeping with a woman you brother had been eying and then slathering him in your eye-shadow while he slept as _betrayal_. Compared to what Loghain had done...nah.

But it's a fun story, rife with humorous moments and Hawke tells it well, which surprises him. It turns out the woman has excellent timing, and a talent for imitation. Most importantly, it's clear that _this_ is a tale close to her heart. It brims with a warmth she doesn't often show and by the time she gets past a rather nauseating bit involving her finger gouging out a darkspawn eye and to her reunion with her brother in the Kocari Wilds, Sunshine isn't the only one of them hanging on every word.

"I never thought I'd miss Carver so much," Sunshine wraps her arms around her knees once her sister's done talking. "He was always such an..."

"Ass?" Hawke supplies easily. "A lovable ass, but an ass nonetheless."

"That _lovable_ makes all the difference," Varric muses, although he realizes full well it goes without him saying. Still, it segues rather nicely into a tale that's been making his tongue itch since they set out on their adventure. "Now. I know the three of you are probably wondering how I've made it this long without being hung for fratricide."

"The thought has crossed my mind, yes," Hawke smirks over the fire. "I assume that Bartrand has a lockbox of embarrassing childhood portraits of you in frilly knickers, maybe bows in your chest hair? and you're not certain you could find it before someone else does."

He snorts. "Elaborate, Hawke. And...such a box _might_ exist."

It doesn't, but he likes the idea. Tethras family portraits were always maddeningly somber affairs; the idea that any would be even amusing would be a pleasant change.

"Listen...Bartrand's not always a bad guy," Varric smoothes the edge of defensiveness with every syllable. "He's just under a lot of pressure here...as in, if he doesn't find serious treasure, he might as well just break his own legs and throw himself off a mountaintop."

"I'm certain most of us would gladly line up to help," Blondie interjects, his lips curling in ill-concealed disdain. Varric can't blame him...he's spent most of this trip healing injuries caused by Bartrand's temper. While he has his doubts about the mage, in addition to a few niggling prejudices against abominations, Blondie is definitely a worthwhile companion to have along.

"I'd say some would line up _twice_," Hawke adds, keeping her eyes carefully trained on the fire. "But I doubt that's the point Tethras is trying to make here."

"Not at all," he shifts so that his elbows are resting on his knees, his fingers templed just below his chin. Speaking softly so that his friends are forced to lean forward to better here him, he begins a simple story...one that he's repeated to himself a thousand times since they'd left Kirkwall, and would probably need to be repeated four times over before they make it back...

"As you know by now, I'm a born surfacer...a lifelong citizen of the Free Marches and generously disavowed of all the charms of dwarven society that isn't money, pub songs, or pretty dwarven serving lasses. I like the sky, thank you very much, and the Paragons can go soak their collective heads if they think that makes me any less of a dwarf.

"Bartrand, though...he was born in Orzammar. He remembers the city, the vast lava flows, the way the Diamond Quarter actually glittered when you stood on the Proving bridge and looked up. I wouldn't know a Proving bridge from a rope one, but Bartrand...dwarven culture means something to him. Even though he was, by all rights, too young to fully understand what it meant, he hated becoming a surfacer, and giving up his claim to that shared history.

"Then _I_ came along, and that just made it worse. He hated that his surface born brother had _his_ house name despite the fact that I don't exist according to the Orzammar shapers...which are, for those who aren't into boring shit, incredibly pedantic record keepers-"

"But only if you have a caste, right?" Blondie's sneering again. "They take down every single thing that happens to a dwarf, unless they have the misfortune of being born casteless. Then it's like they were never born."

"That's exactly true, Blondie...," Varric raises an eyebrow. "Don't tell me your dwarven warrior friend filled you in on that unpleasant detail?"

"No," his shoulders roll back, his eyes dark in the firelight. "There was another dwarf, a member of the Legion of the Dead who we found near Kal'hirol. Sigrun was casteless...I think my life in the Circle was better than hers."

"Did she become a Warden?" Sunshine asks, her curiosity delicate.

"Yes, and an excellent one at that," a small flicker of something close to a smile brightens his face. "She was _fascinated_ with Ser Pounce-a-lot...we had a lot of fun chasing him on the rooftops at night. Of all of them, she was the one who most knew what it was like to be held in place, held under, because of circumstances you can't control. It was nice to share my freedom with someone else who knew how much it meant to have it," he pauses, all joy draining from his expression. "I should have said good-bye," he murmurs, regret shimmering blue along the surface of his skin.

Anders wasn't the only one who'd grown fond of the casteless girl.

Varric makes a note of that before continuing.

"With Bartrand loathing my existence, things were always tense between the brothers Tethras...when he'd even acknowledge I _was_ his brother, and not just an annoying gnat that buzzed around him and made his life difficult," he muses. "Ironically enough, considering what I do now.

"But I digress. Bartrand loves dwarven artifacts, and sometimes for their sentimental value. On one special occasion, our father bought him the most beautifully crafted leather bound journal you have ever laid eyes on. Worked until it was as supple as a vir- baby's skin, dyed the color of the purest blue sapphires and every page inlaid with gold leaf designs and the crest of house Tethras.

"Now Bartrand was proud of this journal. He didn't have a thought to put down in it, but it was dwarven and it was _his_, for a job well done. At first he took it everywhere, tucked underneath his arm like a proud noble might carry his heir. Then I noticed he started leaving it behind, first on his nightstand, then on his desk, until one day I found it on _my_ desk."

"Likely," Hawke laughs. "Are you sure you didn't help it along, Varric?"

He chuckles. "You mean a casual stretch, a careless hand and a few clumsy kick-steps down the hallway? I'm not denying anything, Hawke."

The story is more poignant with the truth...but Varric likes to keep a little to himself.

"It's no secret that I fancy myself a bit of a writer. When I was younger, I fancied myself to be a _masterful_ one; no genre could defeat my vivid imagination, no plot was too elaborate for my cunning mind. Words would flow from my pen, ink spilling across the parchment like the blood of the paragons themselves until I had finished my epic, my masterpiece, my soul-stirring ode to the grace of dwarvenity..."

He pauses, searching for what might amuse them most.

"OK, it was a story about a dwarf named Arric who'd lost beloved his pet nug, Pinkerton, and his brother Bert who dropped everything to help him search the streets of Kirkhall to find it. Also, they met a few talking dogs and a one-eyed man named Alice who had a pet crow with _three_ eyes. I thought it was deep."

_I can't believe I told them the truth._

"Were there pictures?" Hawke asks, amusement turning her lips. "Carver took one of my journals and sketched nonsense pictures of us flying on our swords and running from man-sized raccoons on every other page. At the end he wrote: 'Wil. So you are still my sister?'" Her cheeks go pink. "It was adorable...not that I ever let _him_ know I thought so."

"Heh. No pictures..," he's not much of an artist, although Andraste knows he's tried to illustrate some of his more tawdry tales. "Father found out what I had done before Bartrand. He took my quills for months and hid the journal. I didn't know what to expect from Bartrand...I was on tenterhooks, waiting for my life to end at his hands, all for defiling that damned journal.

"Then one day, Father and I came back from a trip to the market and I got sent straight to my room for running off to visit my favorite bookstall. Oh, I was angry at the world, especially knowing I couldn't even get my heartache down in words," he makes this melodramatic. "Maybe that's why it meant so much, opening my door and seeing my desk for what felt like the first time. Not only were my quills back, with new pots of ink, but there was another journal. A red one, this time, and the first page already filled out in Bartrand's script-"

Varric sweeps his hand in front of him, to illustrate the _grandeur_...

"_The Adventure of Pinkerton Nug in Springtime, Volume II: Summer Daze_"

He waits for Hawke to get done giggling before he continues.

"By Varric Q. Tethras"

"What's the Q stand for?" Hawke is laughing again.

"Andraste's ass, Wil, he's telling us a nice...surprisingly...story."

She regains her composure. Most of it. Varric can see the gleam in her eyes even at this distance.

"I know exactly how ridiculous it sounds...and not even _Bianca_ knows what the Q is for. But...I was grateful. I wasn't exactly being encouraged to pursue my storytelling, and I expected to be murdered in my sleep...not to have my bronto's ass of a brother _encourage_ my flights of fancy."

They remain in silence for several minutes, gazing into the flames as they die down. It's not cold down here, so there's no need to keep it burning for warmth and they didn't require a fire fortheir dinner of dried fish and hard bread. But it was something normal, like his fireplace back at the Hanged Man, and cheerful in this forsaken place.

Never mind that it facilitated the telling of stories which, in turn, placated the desperation he can see eating Blondie from the inside. Hawke had asked for his help keeping the mage distracted, and he was more than willing. He owed her that much. After all, she'd managed to make Bartrand's distant obsession a reality.

"So. Tethras," she muses from across the way. "You get 3% of my earnings from the expedition, and I get a copy of every single written volume of _The Adventures of Pinkerton Nug_. I hear that the fifth one, _A Nug for All Seasons_, is a rare, late entry return to form."

He smiles. _Okay, so maybe there's more than _one_ reason to want to help Hawke._

* * *

><p>So the Deep Roads are creepy.<p>

_Very, very..._Wil shivers as something brushes against her hand, and almost faints in relief when it's just Bethany, whom she seizes like she's a single plank of wood bobbing on a wide open sea.

"I feel like we shouldn't be here, Mina," Beth whispers and Wil could not agree more.

"There _is_ a certain amount of..._you shouldn't be here_ happening," she speaks in a murmur. Ahead of them, Anders is creeping along and attempting to sense any darkspawn that might be waiting to ambush them.

He stops. "I can't feel anything," he whips around to eye Wil, his nose scrunched in concern. "But with this..._lyrium_. It's not like the rest, Wil."

She shrugs, attempting to downplay his fears. "Well it's red, for one thing. Maybe the darkspawn...dislike...red. Finds it brings _out_ the mottle rather than distracts from it."

Eyebrow flicking up in delicate confusion, Anders shakes his head as if to clear it.

"That's one theory," he somehow refrains from adding his own snarky coda. "My guess is there's something here that even _they_ want to avoid."

The idea of such a thing gives her a small heart attack, which she forces herself to mask. It's her job to keep calm, after all, no matter how intensely freaked out she might be feeling at any given moment.

"Let's play a game," she urges him forward. "What would a darkspawn want to avoid..."

"Wil, now's not the time," he stops when he sees the daft smile of encouragement she offers. _Sigh_. "Baths."

"Blondie took mine," Varric has fallen into step beside Bethany.

"Flower shops?" Is Bethany's offering.

"My turn?" Wil hugs herself, trying to think of the one thing that might quell the gleam of apprehension in Anders' amb- "Kittens!"

"Kittens?" It works, although his almost smile is bordering on _oh, Wil_. "Wouldn't they want to _taint_ them the way they taint everything else?"

"Could they?" She laughs. "It seems like Ser Pounce-a-lot was able to hold his own against them. Maybe it's the nine lives thing...they give up after the fourth go and give into the adorability. It's bad for their reputations...so now they just avoid them."

"So you think we're going to discover a _kitten_ colony down there?"

"Why not? It seems about as likely as anything," she squints, peering down the long staircase that leads them towards...a door, it seems. "An entire room full of kittens...most of them tabbies. All you need to do is wave your pauldrons around. They have their fun and then...King Anders!" Her arm hits his. "You'll get a crown and everything."

"A crown?" Varric's impressed. "That _might_ make the trip down here worthwhile."

"Oh, sorry. Crown's made of kittens...as are the robes. Good thing you're a healer, Anders."

"Andraste's knickers," he breathes and the entirety of his focus is on her and her stupid little story. "You're ridiculous."

"Only with the proper motivation," she shoots back, warmth spreading through her chest at the affection in his voice.

This time it's a _real_ smile that unfurls across his face like a sunrise that they'd all very much love to see...and soon.

They continue the rest of the way without speaking. Behind them they can hear the mouthy clatter of Bartrand and his handful of guards. They'd remain a safe distance back, watchful and waiting for the way ahead to be cleared. Wil can't help but be thankful...had she and Beth been hired on their first attempt, _they'd_ be stuck playing bodyguard.

_Of course, now wouldn't be the _worst_ time for a misplaced foot, or a deliberate stumble. _

Varric's tale from the evening prior had done little to improve her opinion of Bartrand. It just made her like her dwarf even _more_.

"Look! A door," Varric reaches it first, his nimble fingers running over the elaborate dwarven locking mechanism. He'd become quite adept at picking them, and disarming the traps that were usually part of the package. This one requires a bit more finesse but is no match for his array of metal picks and ingenuity. He nudges it, smirking as the single piece of stone swings back towards them at his touch. "Look! An _unlocked_ door!"

"Look!" Wil enters first, her eyes on a raised platform in the center of the room. "It's an...altar?"

"Or a display of some sort," Varric joins her and they slowly climb the small set of stairs that lead to their prize.

Their prize is ugly. A small, twisted idol that, oddly enough, reminds Wil of the great bronze statues that greet visitors to the Gallows...the same amount of cruelty imbued in this artifact as radiates from the perpetually disgraced and weeping metal slaves.

But beyond its physical appearance is something else- a hum. It wavers in the back of her head like an afterthought that makes her long to clutch her three companions close.

_What if something's hiding in the shadows here? What if something happens and I don't protect them? What if they die and I don't and-_

"Maker's breath," Bethany murmurs from Wil's elbow, breaking the spiral of panic that had threatened to overtake her. "Is that _pure_ lyrium?"

"Like the stuff outside," Anders refuses to come any closer than the edge of the stairs, and from the way he's reaching for them, his long fingers trembling impatiently, he thinks they're in danger. "It's definitely magic...but not the good kind."

"Whatever it is, it's probably worth a small fortune," Varric bows. "Hawke, would you do the honor?"

Hand dropping against his thigh, Anders remains silent. Nonetheless, his eyes are disapproving as Wil turns back to the statue and, using only the tips of her gauntlets to hold it clear of her skin, gingerly lifts it from its resting place.

_Seems like a bad idea, Wilhelmina. You don't know...Anders probably does know...being smart and magey and all that. You should drop it._ _A good idea...dropping it._ She draws a deep breath. This is the first item of real value they'd encountered since they'd gotten down here. The only way the expedition would be worth the cost and the mental anguish...

"What did you find, Varric?" Bartrand's voice comes from the bottom of the stairs; Wil and Varric turn to look at the same time. The older dwarf's ice blue eyes are almost white in this uncanny light and the expression of avarice on his face borders on lust.

Wil's fingers begin to ache, as if the idol is growing heavier with every passing second.

"Here," she slips it to Varric, who hefts it in one gloved hand, before winging it down the steps to Bartrand.

"It could be worth a small fortune, Brother...more if you let me fabricate a story around it," Varric jerks his head to the door beyond the altar. "And we've just gotten started...who knows what we'll find further in."

"Right," Bartrand runs his palm over the idol, his voice distracted. "I...need a minute. To think about what to do next."

He begins to back up, his eyes never leaving the statue. Wil watches him for a moment, a battle waging in her head.

One side is bemused judgment. Bartrand is a greedy bastard, already worshipful of the coin that thing will net him. _He'll probably sleep hump it tonight...poor idol._

Her other half is apprehension. They're not supposed to be here. _None_ of them. And she doubts that anybody is supposed to have that id-

"Hey!" Bartrand has slipped through the door. "Dammit, Bartrand..." she stumbles down several steps before jumping over the remaining three, her feet scrambling against stone as soon as she makes contact. Varric follows close behind, his own shouts of _Bartrand, the door! _slightly more panicked than her own.

They reach it at the same time, their combined weight slamming against the stone surface that does not give.

"Bartrand! You let the door lock behind you!" Varric begins his frantic search for a latch.

"You always _did_ notice everything, Varric," Bartrand's voice is muffled through stone, but the chill vein of mockery is impossible to miss.

"Are you joking?" Wil's never heard Varric sound so...desperate. "You'd screw over your own brother for a lousy idol?"

"It's not just the idol, Varric. The location of this thaig alone is...priceless," he snorts. "And I'm not splitting that three ways...sorry, _brother_."

A flat dismissal...a final, sour grace note.

"Bartrand," it wrings itself from Varric's throat, his fingers curling helplessly against the door. "BARTRAND!"

For a moment, Wil fears Varric might cry and...she has no idea what she'll do if that happens. Instead, he slams his fists against the stone and whips around, his eyes narrowed in rage.

"I swear, I will find that son of a bitch...sorry, Mother," he pauses. "I will find him and I will _kill him_!"

He's quiet for a moment, his chest heaving as he fights to calm himself.

"I'm sorry, Hawke," it's barely more than a whisper.

"Don't be," her breath catches and she has to force the air into her lungs. "Besides, unless I'm seeing things, you're right here with us."

She turns back towards the altar where Anders and Bethany remain motionless, their faces wearing identical expressions of _we are so fucked now._

_No_. It's a small but willful voice. This is something Wil _can_ handle. _We are _not_ fucked._

"There has to be a way out of here," she asserts. "The Deep Roads go on forever, right?"

Anders groans.

"No groaning!" She points at him. "Your maps...there were crossroads and three other routes we could have taken to get here...maybe we can find a tunnel that intersects another tunnel and maybe we'll find a tunnel we _remember_."

"Have you been paying attention to this place, Hawke?" Anders' voice is edged in panic. "Every single tunnel down here looks like every _other_ tunnel down here. It's all part of the charm of the Deep Roads."

"Then we look for the tunnels full of dead darkspawn," she keeps her voice level as she approaches him, hoping that something about her is comforting. "We've left a considerable trail of corpses behind us, Anders." Her hand finds its way to his shoulder, and she can't ignore how he leans into her palm like a scared and affection starved cat. "We'll know where we've been...all we have to do is...get there."

"Just like that," Varric throws in his support.

"Just like that," Wil confirms, her other hand going out to catch Bethany's, hoping her sister doesn't notice how it trembles and betrays her own fears that they might just be _that fucked_. "And who knows...maybe we'll find that kitten kingdom after all."

* * *

><p><strong>Note from SF:<strong> Getting closer! The next chapter will probably be even more vignettey.

Thanks, as always, to the people that read and/or offer their feedback. It's all so very appreciated!


	24. Mina, Please

"Mina..._please_," Bethany's eyes attempt to fix on her sister and her hands that are far colder than they should be tighten themselves around Wil's wrists to pull the plain dagger closer to her stomach.

The _dagger_... it's impossibly heavy and she must hold it between tightly laced fingers because she's shaking far too much to keep it steady otherwise.

"I don't want to die like this...feeling it poisoning me," Beth's voice is a whisper that breaks like icy waves over Wil's heart. "And being a Grey Warden..."

"Anders didn't exactly _sell_ it, that's for certain," Wil tries to smile but it comes out all wavy. "But you'd live, Bethany, and you'd be out of reach of the templars. _Free_."

"Free," she murmurs, her chin falling so that dark hair cascades to obscure her face. "I think there's only one way I'll ever be truly free, sister."

She digs her fingers into Wil's wrists and allows a single, anguished sob. It's the first real show of emotion she's allowed herself and it might as well be a serrated blade the way it cuts Wil to the core in jagged, agonizing strokes.

"_Bethany_. I…," Wil presses her forehead to her sister's, one hand coming up to brace against her ashen neck.

_This is impossible..._

* * *

><p>"You need to stop being so <em>fidgety<em>," Anders attempts to blow a lank lock of hair from his eyes and is thwarted by the wet weight of it. Wil uses her good hand to hold it aside, her fingers remaining close to his temple to idly twist the damp strands as he examines the other.

"If we weren't bound to need that hand on our way out of here, I'd say leave it," Varric snorts. "Otherwise she might get it into her head that she can go around punching whatever she wants with no consequences."

"That mindset would have come in handy earlier, Varric," Wil's laughter turns into a gasp when Anders presses his thumbs to one of her knuckles and forces the finger back into place. After a murmured apology, he rubs the swollen area with small, circular motions, puffs of blue relieving the steady ache that had set in almost as soon as the rock wraith had fallen. The second time. "It would have been difficult for Bartrand to betray us with a broken face!"

The dwarf's only response is a weak smile before he heads back to the treasury where Bethany is organizing their haul. Having spent the better part of their time in Kirkwall haggling over the worth of every bit of loot they've managed to unearth has developed her instincts for knowing which pieces will be most worthwhile. Since there's no way the four of them can transport _everything_ they've found with no carts or beasts of burden, it's up to her to decide what they'll be taking with them when they leave.

Now that Wil's alone with Anders, she wishes Varric had stayed. Without him, she has nothing to distract her from the mage, and she can't help herself from studying him as he focuses on her hand. The lines of his face, the curve of his nose and the way the corner of his mouth digs into his cheek when he's lost in his work.

Then there's the pink that brightens his pale cheeks and she brushes against his ear to see if she can turn it a deeper shade.

"_Wil_," his eyes raise to meet hers. He's exhausted. Worried. At war with himself. But, within all that and even in the dim light of the dwarven vault, she can see something else that burns there.

"_Anders_," she says it in a low, seductive tone but tucks the loose hair behind his ear before dropping her hand safely into her lap. Her other hand, the one he holds, is flush with warmth that isn't _all_ her own.

He laughs, short and not _wholly_ amused. "_Somebody's_ feeling confident," he presses on another knuckle, the ensuing pop and gasp louder than the one before. "You punch a demonic rock creature into temporary submission and now you think you can do anything."

"Hardly!" She tries to wiggle her fingers and succeeds in getting one to twitch. "I'm just trying to keep your mind occupied with something that _isn't_ going to give you heart palpitations."

"Ah."

_pop_

_gasp_

"Just so you know...," his cheeks darken and his head shakes as he disagrees with what he's about to say before it gets to his lips. "I think talking about me becoming the Kitten King would be a better means to that end."

He has a point.

"Storytelling works, too, doesn't it?" Wil thinks back to the things they've told each already, when the four of them have been alone and trying to invite cheer and normalcy into this bleak place. "I think it's my turn..."

"Embarrassing things," Anders reminds her as the blue light around her hand grows steadily brighter. With every second that passes Wil can feel the bruised flesh easing to normal and the pressure on her joints decreasing. It's an eerie sensation, and not entirely pleasant, but by the time he finishes, she can open and close her hand without pain or stiffness. "Is your story going to give me heart palpitations?"

He's still holding her hand in both of his and his he traces idle figures against her downturned palm, the touch light as breath but echoing along her arm and in other places that ache for such attention.

From him.

"Probably," she gasps and he immediately begins re-examining her hand, searching for something he might have done wrong, or missed.

_You've done everything right, _she thinks, shifting slightly as she does. _But you've missed about 99% of me. _

"So, are we ready to get started?" Varric appears over them, looming as much as a dwarf _can_ loom and in each hand he holds a pack laden with treasure. "If we're unlucky, it will take us about a week to get to the surface."

Wil accepts her bag and slings it over her shoulder, almost relieved at the interruption and the confidence in Varric's voice. A week out doesn't sound _too_ bad. "And if we're lucky?"

Varric's eyes narrow. "If we're lucky, we stumble over Bartrand's body on our way out."

* * *

><p>"They look no different from the mushrooms that Elegant uses for potions," Wil pokes at the fungus and cringes as her finger slips along its soft, damp surface. "I haven't died yet, so I assume they're edible."<p>

"Edible might be an overstatement," Anders hesitates, considering their quandary. They're running dangerously low on rations and not encountering much by way of edible foodstuffs. For the past few days, when they'd been crawling through an endless series of tunnels, lichen had gotten them through. Now that the walls are covered in darkspawn corruption, they're distrustful of almost everything they see.

These mushrooms, though, are in a clear area…a strange basin of sorts within a large cavern where the corruption has not spread. Wil remembers this place, vaguely, from Anders' map. The legend had indicated that there would be a well on the north end, which is where Varric and Bethany have headed in search of water to add to their small supply of wine.

Wil ignores Anders' assessment and cuts the mushrooms at their base. When Bethany returns, they can be rinsed and then…sautéed? They have nothing in which to cook them...

"Could you…roast them in your hands?" She's only half kidding as she drops the harvest into Anders' outstretched palm. "Just enough to knock out the chill."

He frowns as he stares down at the mushy pile of _brown_. Wil is getting the sense that he's moved past hunger and is in that strange place where the last thing he wants to do is eat, and he's the one who needs it most. His shadowed eyes are growing more prominent every day and his cheeks have begun to hollow. _Hollow...er_

"Starving yourself won't help any of us." Then, almost absentmindedly, "And you're far too sinewy to make for good eating."

"Soup stock, maybe?" He lowers the mushrooms onto a clean piece of cheesecloth that's been spread on the ground and appears to be seriously contemplating a creative means of making them less repulsive when his head whips around towards the end of the cavern where Varric and Beth are-

"MINA!"

Wil's running before Bethany makes it to the _n_, her fingers going for a pair of dragonbone daggers that they'd found after offing the rock wraith and clearing out his profanes. Her sword and sheath had been removed when they'd stopped to make camp and, besides, it's too awkward to carry when she has to run _this_ fast.

According the map, the well sits just behind a crest in the basin and she's almost to the top when she hears the sickly hiss of darkspawn followed by the familiar crackle of flames. Ahead of her, orange streaks pummel a gentle stone slope and Wil can see Bethany across the way, back to the wall while a hurlock swipes at her with a cruel looking blade. Closer is Varric, who is attempting to get some distance between himself and a second darkspawn, Bianca being used to pummel the unflinching creature.

Wil races towards the dwarf, blades drawn and ready to sink into the creature's neck. There's a small gap in its rusted cuirass where the daggers slip in easily, causing it to wrench and flail in response as she twists the grips with cruel intent and yanks back with every ounce of strength in her possession.

She just needs Varric to be free.

"Varric! Bethany!" Her head jerks to where her sister has managed to hold back the beast that's after her. Hold back but not _kill_. The staff she carries is not meant for melee combat and there's no opportunity between attacks for her to cast.

It's fine, though. Varric handles it with a series of bolts to the head that sends the creature wheeling safely away from Bethany. She seizes onto the first opportunity she has to scramble across the gap between them.

Wil's hurlock remains a handful, rearing back in a mad attempt to headbutt her. She narrowly dodges the assault but at the loss of her grips on the daggers, which she realizes are heavily coated in the same black blood that's now dripping from her bare hands.

_Anders is going to have a fit when he sees this, and something tells me he won't take _The Maker watches over fools_ as a comfort. _

While she's staring in wonderment at her fingers, Varric finishes off the second darkspawn, his concern going to Biance as the battered fiend collapses, lifeless, to the ground.

"Maker! That was unexpected," Bethany hurries towards Wil, worry clear in her amber eyes.

"Careful!" Wil pulls away before Beth can touch her, although it probably doesn't matter. Bethany's tunic and cheeks are splattered with clumps of blood and viscera. "I might be tempted to leave handprints on your backside."

Bethany's eyebrow shoots up. "You wouldn't!"

"Even _I_ know she would, Sunshine," Varric doesn't look up from Bianca, so he doesn't see Wil smiling sheepishly down at her sister.

"Have I mentioned recently how weird you are?" Bethany begins to pull at the crank on the well.

"Would you prefer them someplace else?" Wil waggles her blackened fingers suggestively.

"Absolutely not!"

"Varric?"

"Don't even think about it, Hawke," he and Bethany share a quick, amused glance and feels the faint tug of accomplishment. They've just been attacked by darkspawn stragglers, which means there are probably more nearby, and are on the verge of starvation, yet they're in decent spirits.

_That's half the battle right there, isn't it? Morale_? Her eyes dart automatically back towards where Anders is in camp and probably fretting over them. She remembers his haunted eyes, and the way his collarbone juts above the edge of his tunic, appearing almost sharp enough to cut the skin. She remembers waking every night to his plaintive cries in the dark, nightmares keeping him even more exhausted and on edge. He's nothing if not proof that fitful smiles and stolen moments of levity alone aren't enough to keep a person wholly sane or _fed_.

Helplessness overwhelms her at her inability to reach into that brain of his and touch something that will make him, if not _better_ then just not as..._fraught_.

Bethany comes closer with an animal hide pouch full of water and they begin to clean themselves the best they can without stripping down to their smalls, wincing at the frigid water as they splash it over their skin and then laughing over the shared memory of a hot night and a sudden snowstorm.

Helplessness abates.

* * *

><p><em>The moon shines down on us, two long-limbed young women floating hand in hand in a small pond. We've been here before, clad only in thin linen smallclothes that obscure nothing when wet. We've been here before, alone with our thoughts and each other.<em>

_We've been here before, but as Malcolm Hawke's daughters. _

_And now he's dead._

_It's been only two days, but we've already lit the funeral pyre. Our father, the central figure in our life, is nothing more than ashes on the very wind that pushes us in lazy circles, our long, dark hair entwining and trailing behind. _

_"I don't know if life will ever seem right without him," Beth muses into the darkness, her voice edged raw from two days spent existing between crying jags. "What will we do now, Mina?"_

_"_I_ don't know. I haven't read Father's _A Guide for What to Do In The Event of My Sudden Death _yet," I have never felt the age difference between Beth and myself so acutely as I do at this moment. Beth has regressed a few years, choosing to spend the past two nights with our mother, crying while I struggled to arrange for Father's funeral pyre and figure out what he might be owed and by whom. I've not slept, either. Instead I've been hunched over Mal's records, staring blindly at them as the realization sinks in that I've been thrust into adulthood despite being so uncertain what adulthood really is. _

Or maybe adulthood _is_ uncertainty_. I frown. _That doesn't _seem_ right.

_"Carver can get a job on one of the farms until he's of age to enlist...you can tend the garden and livestock. I'll...probably take odd work when I can find it. There's always coin to be earned from the Chanter's Board, or some merchant who needs a sword to guard his stall on market days."_

_I speak dispassionately, which is also not right. There is no assured income in my plan, besides whatever pittance Carver can pocket, and nothing in there to account for how I'm going to protect them. _

_My stomach wrenches at _protect_ with such force that it brings tears to my eyes. I promised Mal I would keep them safe, and I don't have the first idea how to go about actually _doing_ that._

_"Fuck," I abandon passive floating to begin back towards the dock, cutting through the water with desperate strokes. _

_"Mina?" Bethany splashes after but can't keep up with me. I'm out of the water and pulling on my tunic before Bethany is able to stop swimming. "What's wrong?"_

_"Nothing," I lie through a sudden barrage of hot tears that strikes as I yank my shirt over my head, the fabric clinging to wet skin a frustration that breaks me down. "I just need to be more reassuring. And I should have a plan," I swipe at my eyes, hating how my voice shakes as I sound this out. "I mean, you and I _do_ have a plan. Garden and allure and sex and pies...but that's not a very good plan, you being so young and with Mother around...she'll probably want me to get married and it makes sense? But I'd have to leave you and I should...," my mind's a painful void. "I should have..."_

_"Stop," Beth begs as she pulls herself out of the water, her own face on the verge of collapse when I continue rambling about _should haves_ and _maybes_. "Mina, please stop...," her wet hands find my face and with this contact is the faintest flare of magic, as much as she dares to use out in the open. It's meant as comfort and I accept it because I have to, curling myself into a ball on the dock. Beth's fingers rake wet locks of hair away from my face while I cry and ache and allow myself this one final night of confusion, of being lost when I've never been lost before. _

My path has always been clear, hasn't it? _My cheek presses into the splintery wood beneath it._ Or has it been Father's path all along and I'm just on it because I wanted him to be proud of me? Or because it's all I know?_ It's a sobering thought, and one that might very well be true. _If it is my path, then why can't I see the ground just ahead of me? Why do I feel as if I'm on an out of control steed that's tearing around a blind curve?

_"I wasn't supposed to have to do this on my own, Beth." _

_"You won't be doing it on your own," Bethany is resolute and I hate myself for resenting her youth in the slightest. "But you could if you had to. If anyone could, it's _you_...just like Father."_

_Bethany is somehow still proud of me, confident despite my current state._

_Father's not the only reason I am who I am.  
><em>

* * *

><p>"We've definitely been here before, Hawke," Varric points to a partially decomposed deepstalker, its throat split by a very familiar crossbow bolt. "And not recently…although, truth be told, <em>recently<em> is starting to lose all meaning."

She understands. Her own sense of time has been confused since Bartrand abandoned them. Varric had mentioned something about making it here in five days, but it had only been five _sleeps_, and they've been making camp when needed and not waiting for what they considered nightfall.

"If I'm remembering it right, this was before the cave in," Wil points to a pair of columns carved to resemble dwarves stacked atop of one another, each one slightly smaller than the one below it to make the ceiling seem improbably high. "I remember Bartrand actually stopped to look at those. It was early, too. Before he realized _how_ far behind we were."

She's getting excited. Too excited, perhaps, because there's a _wildness_ in her tone that's unsettling. Even Anders has perked up, joining them at the edge of the stone staircase to assess their surroundings.

"Andraste's sword, _yes!_" His eyes are more alive than Wil has seen them since before Bartrand's thaig; her attempts to cheer him have been steadily decreasing in effectiveness until now she's almost certain she'd have to do a _striptease_ to get any sort of reaction besides…_sigh_… "I think we were…four days out when we got here? Maybe only three."

"Awesome." Varric and Wil speak in unison, Anders nodding his agreement.

It's like a second wind and a weight lifted all at once.

"I, for one, will kiss the grass when we see it," Wil begins down the steps, shrugging slightly to reposition her loot-laden pack. Now even that burden can be appreciated. "But first we have to…" she catches movement from the corner of her eye, turning sharply and then feeling silly when she realizes it's only Bethany. She'd stood away from them why they consulted with one another, keeping quiet. That's not terribly unusual, considering all of them are at the edge of starvation and bone tired, too. "Maybe we should stop here for a bit?"

Bethany lifts her chin, her head tilting off to the side while she does so, her movements slower than mere deliberation. "I think…I think that might be a good idea."

Varric snorts in agreement, "I don't think those last mushrooms we had are sitting well with _anyone_."

"No," Bethany's voice grows faint just as she falls to her knees, her head still at its strange angle and Wil doesn't know if she's ever moved so fast, sliding behind her sister so she can pull her shoulders back to keep her from spilling forward onto filthy stone.

"Bethany!" Wil can feel her skin through her tunic. It's like ice against her hands, and harder than it should be. Dread begins to unspool in her stomach, that nightmarish sense of something horrible lurking just beyond every turn and within every shadow. Her fingers catch Beth's chin and she moves it, gentle, until dark hair has fallen away and Wil can see her face.

It's a face she knows better than her own. Better than any other face she's ever encountered. It's a face she's watched change over nineteen years, a face she's literally done backflips to lift from sorrow to smiles and…_this is not how my little sister is supposed to look._

Bethany knows, too. Her eyes are shut against Mina's reaction to the sickly gray of her skin and the blackening veins that run like cracks along her neck and jaw.

"Just like Wesley," she murmurs and Wil _dies_.

_No. _

She remembers, though. A flash of dim sunlight off of Flemeth's steel gauntlet and Aveline's husband had been sentenced.

But this isn't stupid Wesley. This is _Bethany_.

and

_No._

"It's the blight," Anders kneels beside them, surprise in his voice and sympathy in his dark eyes. "I can sense it now. I…thought that it was from the corruption in the tunnels, but…"

"This is the same thing?" Bethany opens her eyes and they're dulled, distant and can't focus on either Wil or Anders. "That horrible sludge is…_inside__ me?_"

"It's been a few days since we've even seen a darkspawn. Maybe…," Anders takes her wrist between his fingers, but his face is already collapsing in realization. "It must have been from that attack at the well…a small amount of blood _would_ take longer to spread."

"That doesn't seem like _bad_ news," Wil sinks back onto her heels, pulling Bethany so she can rest against her more comfortably. "And trust Sunshine to keep quiet about it all this time."

"What could you have done? Swooped in to rescue me from my own blood?"

Wil's heart clenches. "I would have _tried_."

"I know," she leans against Wil's chest, her shoulders heaving as she takes a deep, rattling breath. Her voice betrays the first signs of fear, "I'm not going to make it to the surface, Mina."

_No. _Not going to make it to the surface _is _not_ an option. Not for _Bethany_. _

Anders must sense Wil's panic, because his hand finds her knee in a comforting gesture. "There might be something we can do…"

"All right?" Reluctance is clear on his features.

He sighs and stares at the ground beside them. "The maps I had…they were taken from a Grey Warden who'd come to Kirkwall. I thought he was sent here to take me back…but he wasn't. They were just planning their own expedition."

_That_ seems _like something he should have told me_. "Way to keep that to yourself, Anders."

She says it too sharply, and he doesn't take it well _at all._

"I was trying to _hide_ from them." Then, accusatory and in no way reflective of the past few months of their lives, "You were only interested in the _maps_."

Wil bites her tongue and looks down. Now is not the time to argue, not when Bethany is…

"I think I might be able to find them, Wil. They can take Bethany, she can…"

"Do what?" Bethany asks weakly. "Become a Warden?"

"Yes!" Wil recalls what Flemeth had told them about Wardens and the blight. Hope breaks loose from behind her despair. "Becoming a Grey Warden might be a cure."

His nose scrunches up in distaste and stays that way. "In a sense…but it's not without its price, Wil. And not one everyone is willing, or _able_, to pay."

"That sounds…ominous…" she waits for him to elaborate but he…continues to wince. "Maker's breath! You can't just leave it there…spit it _out_, already!"

With a heavy sigh, he leans back on his heels. "The process is unpleasant," he shudders and for a moment his eyes grow darker with mental anguish. "And irreversible. And you might never see your sister again…she might survive the blight, but at the cost of becoming a Grey Warden. It's not an easy life," he appears on the verge of tears. "Trust me."

Wil feels hope dwindling, but _some_ yet remains. _Unpleasant_ and _irreversible_ were…  
>not <em>good<em>, exactly, but Anders seemed to do well, considering he _also_ has a spirit living inside him. It's the _never see your sister again _thing that burns, and even that…"You're a Grey Warden…and I'm seeing _you_."

"Oh?" His eyebrows raise. "You think I got away, do you? Eventually the Wardens or the Circle will drag me back. You'll see. I have no illusions about that."

It hurts her for more than the obvious reasons, but she has Bethany to worry about.

"And how does this work exactly? What's this…_process_?"

Once again he makes a face and this time it's regretful. "I can't tell you. I'm sorry, Wil…it's a secret and even I don't have all the details. Just know that it can't be undone, even if you want to undo it."

From her place in Wil's arms, Bethany heaves a sigh. "This just keeps sounding better and better."

"Doesn't it, though?" Wil smiles through tears that threaten to overwhelm her vision. _Now is not the time for this, Wilhelmina._ "At least you know you won't be required to undergo extensive facial branding." She hesitates because… "At least I _hope_ you won't have to undergo extensive facial branding."

She turns to Anders, who looks as if he might try to carry her off before she can say anything else to scar her sister.

"Andraste, no! No facial brands…we just need to find them in time, and hope they'll agree to it."

"I don't see that we have any other option," her eyes close as a shudder passes through Bethany's thin frame. It's like a cold hand seizing her stomach and _twisting_.

"Wil," he whispers and his hand is back on her knee. Higher than her knee and his fingers, weak as they are, squeeze and comfort flares through her, _burns_ through her, like flame eating paper until it's gone too soon. "I hope I'm right."

She does not respond to him directly. "We'll need to cover as much ground as we can while she's still able to stand...we won't be able to move very fast once I'm carrying her."

"You don't have to carry me, Mina."

"Would you rather be _dragged_ through the Deep Roads?" Wil forces herself to smile down at her sister. "Because those are your options."

"I love you."

Wil fights back tears but does not respond. That was an _in case I don't get the chance later _I love you if she'd ever heard one.

"All right, Anders. We follow you for now."

* * *

><p>Bethany's been propped against her for the past hour, unable to stay upright on her own. Wil is urging sips from a magic-cooled flask but Bethany refuses for the hundredth time. Were it anyone else, Wil would have downed the entirety of its contents herself just to prove a point.<p>

But it's Bethany, and Wil understands.

Wil sets the flask aside so she can use her free hand to stroke Bethany's hair, brushing at it as she examines the lines that are darkening by the hour. Her face is puffy, her features growing distorted.

_This is not right. This is not Bethany._ She looks away, her eyes falling to the pale hands that are curled against her sister's stomach. Wil takes one and winces.

"Your hands are so cold, Sunshine," she covers Bethany's with her own and begins to gently rub. "Now would be a good time for a fire spell."

"I don't want to burn you, Mina," it hurts Bethany to speak. "And my hands are always cold."

"This is true," Wil abandons warming to find the flask, positioning it at Bethany's lips and, this time, she drinks.

"Do you remember the time I almost froze your leg off?" Bethany's tongue comes out to catch a stray drop of liquid, and she ducks her head to fit under Wil's chin. "Father was teaching you letters, I think. I was under a desk, and you were wearing those brown boots that Mother hated."

"You kept punching me with your tiny, bony fists," Wil smiles, crooked and genuine. "What you hoped to accomplish, I don't even want to know."

"I just wanted your attention," Bethany gasps out a laugh and Wil can feel her own throat tighten. "But then you had to go and stamp my hand with your big, ugly boot."

Forcing out a chuckle, Wil fights to maintain something close to composure. "That big, ugly boot was my only defense! And I didn't want it to hurt, I just wanted you to stop punching my shin! You left bruises and everything."

"Did the cold bite, Mina? All I remember is my hand turning to ice as it grabbed your leg and the way you shou-," she's interrupted by a fit of coughing that scrapes and echoes across the cavern where they've made camp. After a few agonizing minutes, Wil's heart slamming harder against her chest with every second, Bethany regains her breath and continues as if everything is normal. "You shouted. 'Oh, you _evil_ thing!'"

She _had_. She had yelled it in frustration which turned easily to amusement when she'd stared down her numb leg to see Bethany crouched beneath the desk, her mouth a perfect circle of surprise.

And suddenly that little girl is all she sees, and how her round face had gone from shock to giggles once she realizes her sister isn't _really_ angry at her, and that she could be something called _corrupted_ after a lifetime of being the _best_ is...unfathomable.

But here they are.

"Well... you _are_ an evil thing!" Wil's free arm goes up so that she can engulf her sister in a close embrace. She buries her face completely in Bethany's hair which smells like the Deep Roads and, beneath that, sunshine.

She buries her face and allows silent sobs to rack her body, the grief that overtakes her hidden as she rocks back and forth, pretending that it's Bethany she's attempting to comfort and _not_ herself.

* * *

><p>Wil's bent over a rock whenshe hears Bethany calling her name, followed by the shuffling of boots on stone. She doesn't immediately stand upright to greet her sister...her back is knotted with tension and fatigue and this is only comfortable position she's found for resting.<p>

"Mina," Bethany runs a sympathetic hand along Wil's spine, her fingers releasing a healing spell that does little. Wil stretches and pushes herself upright anyway, hiding the spasms that race towards her shoulders behind an appreciative smile. "Anders says we're getting close."

Remaining mute, Wil nods. He'd told her as much when she'd wandered away from where they'd stopped to rest after their last encounter with a band of darkspawn. The Wardens, if they took Bethany, would not delay in getting her to the surface. There'd be little time left for good-byes.

Good-byes. Could you say good-bye to a sister? Wil still feels Carver within herself. Not all the time, but enough that she doubts she'll ever forget the sound of his voice, or the way he'd sometimes _sometimes_ smile at one of her jokes a few minutes after she'd cracked it and it was a special smile...a different smile that only she ever saw.

And this is _Bethany_. Bethany is more than- Wil tries to give it shape in her head...definition. But it's unwieldy, resistant to explanation. All but this...

It's Wil herself. The best parts. The heart, the quiet compassion, the ability to love messy, awkward people like…well, Wil herself.

"Carver is the parts of me I try to fight," Wil leans back against the rock, arms crossed over her stomach. "The cynicism. The contrariness. The pride...the _mouth_. How did you turn out so fantastic?"

Bethany doesn't respond. Instead she stares directly into Wil's face, her eyes burning at last after days of being dull...dying, because she herself is dying.

But not for long. _Maybe_. Wil raises her eyes to focus on the cavern ceiling...a neutral entity that will delay her tears. When she returns them, Bethany is offering her a dagger.

"I want you to...," her voice catches. "I want you to use this."

It gleams somehow, even in the uneven light of the Deep Roads. It gleams...mocking. Wil licks her lips and feels her mouth twitch into a smirk. "Use it to what? Carve our names into the stone? 'Mina and Beth were here. Worst trip ever!'? "

This earns a single harsh laugh and she shoves the pommel into Wil's hand. Wil takes it, because her body is momentarily out of her command.

"I've been thinking," Bethany squares her shoulders and shakes her hair out as if she's preparing to discuss what color blouse she should wear to dinner at the Hanged Man _does_ _navy go with the blight, Mina?_ and _not_ her own death. "I've been thinking that dying would be better."

"Better?" Wil repeats, her mouth not completely closing itself once the word is out.

"I might not survive joining the Wardens...if they'll even take me. And what if they can't get me to the surface soon enough? Will they wait for me to die...and me among strangers? Or would they abandon me in the dark…alone?" Her words are taking on a panicked tone.

She _has_ been thinking.

Bethany continues, "And what do I know about being a Warden? What do I know about life when it's not with Mother, or...you?" Her lips tremble as she reaches for Wil's wrists, fingers like ice tightening to pull them, and the dagger they hold, forward. "Mina..._please_."

The _dagger_... it's impossibly heavy and she must hold it between tightly laced fingers because she's shaking far too much to keep it steady otherwise.

"I don't want to die like this...feeling it poisoning me," Beth's voice is a whisper that breaks like icy waves over Wil's heart. "And being a Grey Warden..."

"Anders didn't exactly _sell_ it, that's for certain," Wil tries to smile but it comes out all wavy. "But you'd live, Bethany, and you'd be out of reach of the templars. _Free_."

"Free," she murmurs, her chin falling so that dark hair cascades to obscure her face. "I think there's only one way I'll ever be truly free, sister."

She digs her fingers into Wil's wrists and lets loose a single, anguished sob. It's the first show of emotion she's allowed herself and it might as well be a serrated blade the way it cuts Wil to the core in jagged, agonizing strokes.

"_Bethany_. I…," Wil presses her forehead to her sister's, one hand coming up to brace against her ashen neck.

_This is impossible..._

But instead of feeling her sister's acute longing for death, Wil gets _this_:

_I thrash. My skin is aflame; like it's being devoured by ants that nest beneath my it. They light tiny fires along my arms, they nip and teem and dig themselves into the creases of my elbows and behind my knees. They run along my hair, skittering across my scalp and it itches and burns and I am scratching like mad to make it stop, to put it out. _

_Then, with certainty, I shiver, automatically pulling my limbs closer to my body. A cold wind ruffles my hair. My teeth chatter. _

_I am relieved. _

_The prickling of heat is being replaced with soft bursts of cool that blossom erratically all over my body. It's a familiar sensation and I roll onto my back, eyes seeing blackness that could be anything and mouth opening to catch a single snowflake on the tip of my tongue before I remember where I am _

bed

_and what this is_

the hottest night that I can remember in all my nine years.

_My eyes widen. I am awake, upright in our bed and Beth is next to me, as always, with a mischievous smile on her lips and fat, white clumps of snow clinging to her windblown raven hair. _

_"For me?" I run a finger along my cheek, some of the snow already melting to trickle down my neck. I am more touched by her furtive little nod than I am surprised by the fact that there is a blizzard in our bedroom and she's the one who caused it._

_"You were crying out," she leans against me, her small head resting on my shoulder. Around us, the room is returning to normal. Soon, only our own damp bedclothes and a few small puddles will remain as proof of what had happened here. "And I thought _I wish it were cooler, for Mina_. And..."_

_"It snowed?" My arm goes around her narrow shoulders and I hug her close. She's so sensitive to the cold and shivering like a frightened hare. "This is...you made it _snow, _Bethany!"_

_"Just like Papa," her voice is proud. _I_ am proud._

_We should both be scared...but we're not. She is my sister, so she is safe. _

_I am her sister...so she is safe._

"I can't," Wil pulls away, throwing the dagger aside as if it's burnt her skin. "You can't ask me to do this. You can't ask me to _kill_ _you_."

"Mina," Bethany's face crumples. "It's what I want."

Wil doesn't hear _it's what I want_. Wil hears _I'm afraid of what might happen once we're apart _because _that_ makes sense. Bethany wanting to die? No. _No_.

"But I...," she wants to tell her sister about the promise she'd made to Mal as he died. Instead, she speaks as honestly as she can. "I'm selfish, Bethany, and I can't stab you and hold you while you die when I _know_ there's a chance you could survive. It's just not in me...," when she blinks, tears are forced out of her eyes to spill down her cheeks and it's through this blurry veil that she sees Anders approach, flanked on one side by Varric and the other by a tall, dark-haired man with a thick mustache.

Hurriedly she wipes her eyes, not wanting the Warden to see her in this state and knowing this will be easier for Bethany if she's not crying. She then loops her arm around her sister's waist, holding her close for one last hug and it's a relief when Bethany's arms find their way around her neck.

"Are you sure about this, Mina?" Wil hears _this,_ and knows that Bethany will accept whatever she decides.

"I'm not sure about anything," Wil pulls back, cupping her sister's chin gently in her hand so Bethany can see where this decision is coming from. "But I need you to live, Sunshine."

"Even if we never see each other again?" Her voice is small, her dark brows going down in the same sorrow that had overtaken Wil the night before.

"_Especially_ if we never see each other again...," beyond Bethany, Wil can see the Warden getting impatient and that's her cue lighten the mood. "Life is going to be shit enough without you with me...I might just..._fade away_ if I didn't at least know you were _somewhere_, freezing stuff and setting other stuff on fire and being the best."

It earns her a small smile.

It's the only thing that gets Wil through the next few minutes.

She remembers little but this:

Stroud is an asshole, and Anders cares. Genuinely.

Bethany is taken from her, eyes searching her face and _this was never supposed to happen_ and what Wil _wants_ to say is _I'm sorry I failed_ and _I love you_ and _I am so sorry_.

Instead she says: "I'll probably tell mother you ran off with a handsome dwarf lord so she'll be proud of at least _one_ of us."

The Warden looks at her as if she's mad. Bethany understands. She laughs through tears and is then lifted so she can be carefully settled across the broad shoulders of one of Stroud's men.

And then she's taken away...perhaps forever.

Wil remains. She remains unmoving and watches as they leave with her sister.

Forever she watches them and her mind is stuck in a loop

_I should have killed her like she asked._

_I should have left her in Kirkwall._

_I should have killed her like she asked._

_I should have left her in Kirkwall._

And she doesn't know what to do with herself now that it's come to _this_.

* * *

><p>The first night she's on watch and she spends it writing a letter to Leandra that turns into several letters to Leandra, a love poem that rhymes wholesome with loathsome, and a list of ways she'd like to slowly murder Bartrand Tethras.<p>

She's writing furiously when Varric finds her, one honey eyebrow cocked in concern that turns into a furrowed brow and then an offer of a shoulder to cry on.

But she can't.

The second night Anders is on guard. She sits with him for an hour, but he's been keeping himself contained- his hands and arms close to his body and his gaze avoiding the entirety of her. She wants to thank him for pushing Stroud to take her sister, but she also wants to look him in the eye when she does so.

It seems the right thing to do.

He tells her to sleep, so she goes to where Varric is curled up with Bianca. She drags her bedroll close to his and sits with her knees hugged to her chest. She counts breaths the way Anders had taught her on a boat ride to the Gallows that seems like something that happened to someone else and just filtered its way to her. She counts breath and watches the form of her friend as it remains still for hours, exhaustion compensating for the hard ground beneath him.

The third night she sleeps.

It feels like a betrayal as she drifts off, as if sleep is a luxury or a creature comfort that she doesn't deserve.

She dreams. Not of Bethany or the Deep Roads, but of Ostagar. Of a strange woman with empty green eyes and a battle lost to darkspawn.

She dreams of running through the Wilds, but alone. Carver is never there to meet her and she doesn't have the chance to look. So she runs. Scared.

But mostly it's the _alone_ that stings. It's not something she's ever been, really, and yet that's exactly what she is when she wakes with a startled sob, tears pouring down her face.

She sits up, uncertain what it is that woke her until she hears a strangled moan in the dark.

Anders.

His nightmares have been a theme on this trip and she's used to laying awake while he cries out, thinking that there has to be _something_ she can do to help him.

Tonight, he's close...not too far from her bedroll and she's edging towards him before she's aware she's made a decision to do _anything_, much less position herself next to him, stretching so that one arm is across his waist with her hand planted firmly at the far side of his hip.

Wil doesn't know _why_ she does this. But it's not like she's touching him and she just wants to be close in case..._I can't stand to lose anyone else and I can't stand for him to be scared or miserable or-_

"Mina," he groans and those two syllables are not what she expected to here. She freezes for a moment, uncertain...scared...and desperately longing to answer his cry with her mouth on his, especially when he grounds out a desperate, "_please_."

Oh. Wil straightens and carefully, _so_ carefully because..._Justice_, finds his cheek. Her fingers brush against stubble to guide themselves along the sharp edge of his jawline until they sink into hair that is soft despite needing a good wash.

He's sweating, but she hardly notices. What she _does_ notice is the way his body comes to life beside her when she touches him. His face turns to press against her palm and she can hear legs shifting and hands searching

_and I want to be what they find._

For a moment she can't breathe. For a moment she is heartbroken and dizzy with need for him.

_Mina, please_ hums in her ears which are also pounding and hot and her stomach is hot and all she wants is to fit herself against him, to entangle her limbs in his until it's impossible to tell who is holding who, only that they are both being held.

_Safe. _

And it's close to happening when his eyes fly open, bright orbs in the darkness.

Wil rears back and pulls her hand clear so that Justice cannot accuse her of anything untoward.

Blue light crackles, running along Anders to create an eerie effect...Anders silhouetted against a black backdrop. Wil averts her eyes, but not until she's seen more than Anders is probably comfortable with her seeing.

"_No!_" He shouts, part Justice and part Anders. He sits up. From the corner of her eye, the blue fades and it's just Anders trying to catch his breath and sounding like he's been held underwater for ages and air is the most precious commodity.

She gives him a few minutes to regain some measure of awareness, taking the time to compose herself, too. No matter what she wants,

_needs_

she _has_ to ignore the ache that's settled below her stomach and the pressure that's built behind her eyes and along her throat.

"So," she begins, nervous. "Are the nightmares something that _all_ Grey Wardens have, or are you just _that_ unlucky?" She hesitates. This next part is about all of his nightmares. "It sounded...terrible."

"Yes," his voice is a broken scrape, exhaustion and sorrow clinging to his words. "And it is terrible. Disjointed. Hopeless. I'd forgotten how it can take hold, how it could hurt and...confuse."

The word hangs between them.

_Confuse_. She moves, suddenly uncomfortable. _How much does he remember? Was his reaction to me confusion? Did he think I was someone else?_ Envy at this phantom burns uncomfortably until she forces out an excuse that seems _almost_ believable.

"I didn't know how to help you. My usual method of efficient violence seemed excessive, but I didn't want you to feel alone when you woke up," the sentiment wavers there; she's giving herself far too much credit. "And, because I know it would bother _me_, nothing made sense. It was just a bunch of meaningless syllables."

He doesn't respond, and she can't fault him for that. Nor does he lay back down. Also understandable. It must be a horrible existence to spend your waking hours with a spirit in your head and your dreams being haunted by...whatever it is that's made him so restless down here.

And now Bethany will suffer, too. Her chest tightens and Wil finds something to break the silence.

"What have I done to my sister?"

His breath catches. Seconds stretch into minutes between them. Then, his tone resolute but apologetic: "It's too much for me to speak of it here, Wil," he settles back onto his bedroll and, from the way the next thing he says is muffled, he rolls onto his side and away from her. "You need to go back to your own bed."

She does as instructed. Not because he told her, but because she's once again thinking and nothing else matters besides:

_I should have killed her like she asked._

_I should have left her in Kirkwall._

_I should have killed her like she asked._

_I should have left her in Kirkwall._

Three nights have passed and she _still_ doesn't know what to do with herself.

* * *

><p><strong>Note from SF:<strong> *sigh*


	25. Alone

Varric, in the most polite way that he can, refuses to let her seek refuge with him at the Hanged Man. While the arguments he makes are valid, amongst them that Leandra deserves to know at least one of her children remains alive, Wil can't help but think that she and her mother would both be better off were it Bethany who'd made it home.

_If Bethany were here, she'd know what to say to comfort Mother._ The right words, the right way of saying them. _I _don't_ know. I don't know how to _do_ this. _

"Varric," she pleads and he puts up one hand to silence her.

"You'll thank me later, Hawke," his tone is not unkind and his eyes betray sympathy and a sadness over the loss of Sunshine he's not otherwise expressed. He's been Wil's patient guide on her tour of life in Kirkwall as a free woman, and he's not about to abandon her now. "I promise."

So she makes the walk from the tavern to the slums on her own, hugging the alley walls and avoiding eye-contact. She wonders if the people who recognize her can see what she's lost, if they have any idea that she's upright despite wanting nothing more than to be curled up in a dark place, alone _or maybe not entirely alone_...where she can grieve without feeling as if she's endangering anyone, where she can vent the steady pressure of anguish that is still making her throat ache and her eyes burn.

If they can see any of that, it receives no acknowledgement. Instead people pass the way they always have. Some see her, most don't. She's able to get to the tenements in fairly decent time, thinking somewhere in the slurry of exhaustion and sorrow that it's always the case. The more you want to delay something, the quicker it comes.

She turns the last corner into the square, which is bearing the full brunt of the noonday sun, and immediately her breath catches, panic eradicating everything but _panic_ until...

_...there's no need to be afraid._ Renewed heartbreak washes over her and, for the first time in her life, she approaches a templar as any other non-mage would.

"Ser...serah Hawke," Knight-Captain Cullen is flanked by two recruits. She recognizes one as a friend of Wilmod and Keran. Cullen appears weary and wary, as if he doesn't quite know what to expect from her outside of the Gallows, and outside of her work. He has no concept of who she really is, only that she's Fereldan, can use a sword and has an affinity for mages. "No doubt you know why we're here."

He speaks softly and, from his expression, she gets the sense that he thinks she should be grateful that he's doing his part to help keep her shameful little secret under wraps.

"The Chantry needs another gold statue so they're sending their bullies out to force donations?" Her arms go across her chest, the muscles in her back burning now with fatigue and the sunlight that's soaking into her dark gambeson. "Or maybe you've lost another recruit to the Blooming Rose and you want me to go lure him back out."

She expects the knight-captain to become angry, to accuse her of blasphemy or fling some other futile accusation at her. Instead his jaw tightens in frustration even as his russet eyes gleam with something approaching understanding.

"I would like to speak to Ser Hawke alone, if you don't mind," he turns to address his recruits. "I'll meet you in the bazaar."

They offer quick, if confused, nods of acquiescence and leave Wil and Cullen alone. Well, as alone as they can be in a crowded square.

"Serah...or should I call you Knight-Lieutenant Hawke?" His expression becomes grave as he says it, and Wil finds herself hoping that something comes of this. Maybe he'll arrest her on the spot for misrepresenting herself as a templar, or...

...she doesn't have it in her to go further than that.

"Mine was but a brief flirtation with the order, Knight-Captain," she stretches her shoulders. "Hawke should suffice for now."

"Hawke," he mumbles it and she swears there's also a hint of blushing at the word _flirtation_. "If your sister comes with us now, and without incident, I will ensure that your family is not punished for harboring an apostate."

Her throat tightens, her eyes burn. Yet her sadness cannot compete with the indignation that ignites within her.

"Harboring an apostate?" She asks, incredulous. "And here I thought I was living with my sister. You know, like people do."

Cullen's brow furrows.

"People," her tone is icy. "But not _mages_."

"Just tell me where she is, Hawke," his chin lowers and it's clear that he thinks he's doing the good and compassionate thing. "I swear to you that she, unless she proves herself a threat, she won't come to harm."

For a second she wants to punch his stupid, handsome face. She wants to beat against his silver chest and scream until her hands and her throat are bleeding. She wants to ask him what kind of person he thinks she is that she'd hand her sister over to save her own life. She wants to ask him if he's ever _really_ thought about what it is he does to the mages he steals from their lives and their families.

She wants to ask him why he didn't come sooner, before they left for the Deep Roads.

"I don't know where she is," blinking rapidly, she forces the tears to remain in her eyes. She's not going to break down here, in the middle of the slums of all places. And she's certainly not going to be undone by a _templar_. "She became ill while we were in the Deep Roads and...," _she shouldn't have even _been_ in the Deep Roads_. "If she's alive at all, she's a Grey Warden now. So take it up with them if you want her so badly," Wil's voice has become almost unrecognizably harsh, her unwillingness to cry apparently requires her to be _angry_. "She'd probably name her firstborn after you. If she could, you know, have children. And keep them long enough to _name_ them."

Cullen stares at her, the oddest flicker of hurt in his eyes, but it passes and he just...gives up.

"You might be lying, but it's not my job to stand here and bear your accusations," his head snaps to the side and a muscle in his cheek jumps. She notices, for the first time, a pink scar, flat like a burn, that runs just beneath his jawline. "And if what you say is true...may the Maker watch over your sister. Being a Grey Warden is not an easy life."

He turns to go and she surprises them both by seizing onto his pauldron. "Cull- Knight-Captain." He stops but does not face her, choosing instead to glance back over his shoulder and her hand. "Who told you?"

"We were looking for you. Your friend the Warden is missing. We thought you might know his whereabouts, and our search led us to a informative neighbor...," he frowns. "I actually didn't know for certain until...but it was a safe assumption."

One word emerges from the tangle in her mind.

_Anders_

"The Warden was with me, Ser Cullen," she asserts, frantically searching for an easy way to deflect the templars' attention away from him. If they show up tonight, even if it is just to ascertain his location, it could turn out badly. "He might not be in his clinic yet...but he plans on returning."

For a while, at least.

_"Justice has plans, Wil," his hands remain tucked between his knees, his head bowed. Still, she can see his eyes gleaming in the firelight and she knows he's watching her. "We came to Kirkwall to get away from the Wardens, and for Karl. Now..."_

_"You have no reason to stay?" It's her turn to pull into herself, to shroud herself in impenetrable space. To keep hurt out, because she has no right to take this so personally. _

_His shoulders raise in defense but he never responds. _

"Too bad," Cullen begins away again. "I'd hoped he'd left to become someone else's problem...and one that can actually be dealt with."

He leaves her with that and she does not follow. Too much is weighing on her now, too much is spinning out of her control.

_Everything is spinning out of your control. You were supposed to return to Kirkwall swimming in jewels. You were supposed to come swanning back into this square with your pretty sister on one arm and your awesome dwarf on the other and issue the biggest _fuck you all, I'm out of here_ that Kirkwall has ever seen._

So maybe she'd actually never thought to do _that_, but she'd expected something. _Accomplishment_. Hope for a more certain future. A sense that it was all worthwhile.

But what does she have? Two bags laden with gems, artifacts and gold. Two bags worth enough to buy three estates in Hightown, and yet she's so much poorer than was before.

That's what she carries up the steps to Gamlen's tenement. Each footfall echoes in the stairwell. Each footfall is a breath she can't quite draw correctly until she has to stop near the top of their landing, gasping and trying like mad to keep the air long enough for it to matter.

It's a struggle to make it matter.

She's remembering another arrival, another journey that brought her to these stairs. After months running and weeks on the sea and days spent in the Gallows waiting for Gamlen to show some compassion for his sister and her children, she and Bethany and Aveline were all in need of someplace to call home. Someplace with a roof and walls and something like beds, because none of them had seen one of _those_ in _forever_.

Instead of home they received Gamlen's hovel. It smelled of him, of stale liquor, salty women and his own special stench of _desperation like old onions_, Bethany called it. It was crusty, full of suspect rags and picture books that made Wil want to bathe just after spending a few seconds in the same room with them. And even if it had been a cozy cottage by the sea with pale green curtains and lacy covers on the settee, he'd made certain that they knew how very temporary he saw their arrangement. This would never be home because it was _his_. His remaining claim. His corner of Kirkwall after he'd fucked, drank, and gambled away everything else he'd been given.

_I don't know if I can blame him for that,_ Wil makes it to the door. _Fucking, drinking and gambling sound pretty fantastic right now. What better way to deal with being alone when you've never really been alone?_

Beyond the rough wooden door she can hear Bello whimpering in anticipation of her arrival. It's a comfort to remember that, no matter what, he might greet her with something less than repulsion. Even if he _could_ reject her, no amount of disappointment could stand in the face of her strong fingernails and propensity for always having bits of dry oxen on her.

Beyond the door is also her mother...and Wil just

_I don't know if I can_...

She sees Varric's face and she knows that she can't let the woman suffer any longer, especially...

So Wil opens the door and it's harder than she'd thought, her muscles resisting her good intentions and screaming at her _bad_ _idea bad idea don't you remember how she treated you when Carver died?_ _Like you could have stopped him from doing anything but especially protecting his own mother from death by ogre?_ but Wil ignores the voice and forces her way in.

It's quiet, even with Bello bounding towards her to bury his face against her stomach, snuffling her belly in delight. Gamlen sits at the table, a bowl of stew half-eaten in front of him and a small pile of copper laid out next to a deck of cards and a packet of parchment. She recognizes it as a type of guide sold by shady merchants in the bazaar. Tips and strategies on how to cheat at Diamondback. _Oh, Gamlen. Never change._

He glances up, surprise loosening his pinched features but not impeding his usual tactlessness. "Well, look who finally deigned to come home," he leans back in his chair. "I half expected you to..." he stops in mid-sentence.

Probably because that's when he actually _sees_ her.

Maybe it's the hunger. Maybe it's her grime covered clothing, or her cheeks which feel scorched after weeks of being without sunlight. Maybe it's the fact that she's unmoving and tears are clinging to eyes which she knows must betray so much.

"Maker's breath, girl," he stands and is far more concerned than she'd ever thought _he_ could be. "What's _wrong_ with you?"

She can't respond before Leandra appears from the back bedroom. Wil has no idea whether she heard her come in or if it was just intuition, but _how_ is unimportant in the face of her mother's heartbreaking relief to see her eldest child home and alive enough to touch and cling to with soft hands that grasp in near wild desperation.

"Wilhelmina! You came back," she catches Wil's cheeks between her palms so she can search her daughter's face, her own glowing with real happiness. "I've been so worried, my darling. So...," like Gamlen it hits her in mid-stride. "So...wait, where's Bethany?" Her brow pulls down in concern and her eyes dart, wild, to a point beyond Wil that's just the door. "Wilhelmina...where is your sister?"

Like a solid thing, the answer sits in her throat and cannot be dislodged. Instead she mouths it, the horrible truth. The failure. _Her_ failure.

"I don't know, Mother."

She gasps and wills herself to hold together. She's had days to come to terms with this. It wouldn't be fair to Leandra for her to break down now and leave her mother with nobody to hang on to.

Not that it matters. Realization settles in like anger as much as sorrow and Wil is rejected in the form of two hands that shove against her chest, that shove her back into a door that she never wanted to walk through, punished for a mistake that is, in and of itself, a greater burden than could be conjured in the deepest parts of the Void itself. Wil's head snaps back from the force of contact and it smacks against solid wood with a _thunk_. She must bite her lip to keep from crying out, to keep from making any noise that might interfere with her mother's wails, and her insistence, her repeated insistence, to Gamlen that _My little girl would have stayed, if only Wilhelmina had told her. If only Bethany had stayed...my little girl gone, just like Carver. _

As if Wilhelmina isn't right there. As if Wilhelmina doesn't feel it sharply enough already, the emptiness, the regret, the bonecrushing loneliness unlike anything she's ever experienced. Even with Varric and Anders. Even here, with Mother and Gamlen, she's alone.

"Leave!" Leandra struggles to her feet and she can't bring herself to look at Wil, at the child who remains. "Go away and don't come back until you have Bethany...until you can tell me what happened to my...," the rest is incomprehensible on account of the sobbing, but Wil can figure it out.

So she leaves.

She's almost to the bottom of the stairs when she hears a panicked, "Wilhelmina, wait!" followed by the noisy fast clatter of worn boots on wooden floorboards and the awkward gait of a man who doesn't give chase very often.

So she waits.

He doesn't meet her. Instead he stops near the top of the steps, his arms across his heaving chest and sweat trickling down from his hairline. When he speaks, it's falteringly. He's not certain how to do this, no more than she'd been certain of anything when she'd walked into the apartment.

"Come back up, girl," his gaze latches onto the toes of his boots. "Leandra doesn't know what she's saying."

"I think Leandra knows exactly what she's saying," Wil takes a tentative step up. "And even if she's right, I don't have it in me to listen. Not today."

"I understand," he frowns. "I got her to lay down."

She doesn't want to go back up. She was almost relieved to be sent away by her mother. It gave her an excuse to run, to disappear. But now she allows herself to be lead to the apartment, her uncle who never wanted her there in the first place holding two doors open for her, and being kind enough to not ask if there's anything she needs as she collapses onto the bed that had been Bethany's and still wears the rush rumpled sheets from the morning they'd left, when last minute packing had meant they didn't have time to tidy up and...

Wil doesn't hear the door close. She doesn't hear anything.

It's a blessing.

Slowly she strips away the clothes she's been wearing for almost two weeks. They come away like skin, like a life lived, to leave behind muscle, bones and viscera.

A life to be endured.

* * *

><p>Sleep only gets her to nightfall.<p>

Darkness is an oppressive thing and she has to fumble through her abandoned pack for a match to light the oil lamp on their _her_ nightstand. It's a task she's not had to perform very often in her life, one of the benefits of living with mages. For one panicked moment, she's afraid she's going to set her fingertips on fire but she manages the simple act without injuring herself or burning the tenement down.

_It's the small things_, she thinks wryly as she adjusts her eyes to the light and attempts to make sense of the dull ache behind them and the thick coating of sour across her tongue and down her throat. It comes with an emotional numbness as she takes in the room and tries to decide what comes next.

Not next in her _life_. She's nowhere near ready for that. She just needs something to do _tonight_. And tomorrow. And tomorrow night and...

Her stomach twists. _Let's focus on tonight._

_Tonight_. She should be dragging Bethany with her to the Hanged Man, gathering with their friends for drinks and raucous stories. She should be sitting with ale in one hand and the other occupied with keeping Isabela at bay while Varric tells Fenris and Aveline about how Hawke punched a huge rock demon in the face..._ish_.

Bethany would watch Varric, her chin resting on the palm of her hand and her dark eyes sparkling as the story he wove fell over her more vivid than it had been when it happened. Varric would pause every now and again, to allow Wil to interject a little aside about how Sunshine had said something adorably astute, or Blondie had groused about his boots, and it would be a pristine presentation of what they'd endured, and a charming one.

_Blondie_. Wil sighs, her hand running down her face. She wonders if he's in his clinic, or if he's already gone. She wonders what he's doing...what he's-

_"I'd hoped he'd left to become someone else's problem...and one that can actually be dealt with."_

_Fuck._

This gets her off the floor and scrambling towards the trunk she'd left behind. Amongst its varied contents is the templar armor she'd taken the afternoon they'd helped the mages from Starkhaven. She doesn't even think the plan through as she strips to her smalls and then begins layering the worn but well-maintained plate over a fresh padded shirt and hose. The only thing she knows is that his profile is uncommonly high right now, and she's the only one who might be able to prevent capture or a bloody, demon-fueled massacre.

It doesn't take her long to get ready. When she emerges from the bedroom, she's greeted by her mother sitting still at the table, a steaming mug of tea in front of her and her puffy eyes closed in what Wil assumes is prayer.

Making no attempt to address Leandra, Wil attempts to stealth her way across the apartment.

Nevermind the fact that she's in full plate metal and has a huge sword strapped to her back.

"Wilhelmina!" There's no anger in Leandra's voice, only shock. "What do you think you're doing?" Wil turns and her mother's eyes widen. "What in the Maker's name are you _wearing_?"

"The templars might be after Anders...I'm going to go down to his clinic...to," she hesitates because she has no idea what she plans on doing. She's hoping that just standing there looking official will be enough to ward off other templars.

"Darktown is dangerous, Wilhelmina," suddenly Leandra is willing to acknowledge that Wil is worthy of concern.

Wil smirks, "Not for _templars_. I'll be-" she doesn't finish. It doesn't seem wise to make promises. The past few have turned out to be far harder to keep than she'd anticipated.

Perhaps sensing that, Leandra doesn't press. Instead her shoulders sink and her fingers toy with the edge of her mug. "Tell me what happened. Tell me why my daughter can't be with here with me," her voice quivers, but she's trying very hard to keep from crying. "Tell me that you didn't just leave her to some unknown fate."

Chest tightening, Wil tilts back against the door and tries not to think in specifics, because specifics will only hurt and she has a short-term purpose now.

"We encountered darkspawn and Bethany became corrupted...," Wil omits the _like Wesley_ part of it, because Wesley had given Leandra nightmares for days. "Anders led us to a Grey Warden. He...recruited Bethany."

Confusion and a small amount of relief spark in Leandra's eyes. "So...Bethany is a Grey Warden?"

Wil shakes her head, desperately wishing she could say _yes_ and have it be true. "Probably? Becoming a Warden is a cure, but sometimes the recruits are killed in the process. They had to get her to the surface faster than we could travel, so I don't know yet what became of her." Then, more for herself than her mother. "It was a gamble...but the alternative was certain death."

Her mother's expression is a peculiar mixture of sorrow and pride. _Of course._ The Wardens are heroes right now. It might be the wrong daughter gone, but it's still something of an honor.

"I...thank you for that," she smiles sadly. "It's a relief to know that hope remains. Do you know what will happen, once she's a Warden? Will she be able to return to Kirkwall?"

"No," it's too quick a response. "Her Commander told me I wouldn't see her again. So...no. She can write, however. It's Bethany...she'll write."

This earns a distant nod and a silent withdrawal from conversation.

Wil leaves without another word. _See you in the morning_ or _have a good night_ were other sorts of promises, and she really _should_ avoid those as much as she can.

* * *

><p>Dawn's light trickling down the cistern lets Wil know she's wasted an entire night guarding Anders' clinic from what turned out to be the phantom threat of templars. She sighs, rubbing her hand along her neck, which is stiff from the unfamiliar weight of a recently discarded steel helm. <em>You don't even know if Anders is here. He could have been taken before you arrived, or intercepted on his way down while Cullen kept you distracted in the square.<em>

Her stomach lurches and she's no longer content to merely watch from a distance or assume that he's safe. She moves from her post near one of the upper tunnels and hurries down the rickety wooden steps that will give her access to the clinic level. While she does so, she cannot help but notice how automatic it is. Even after weeks away, she _knows_ this maze of tunnels, staircases and alcoves. Kirkwall, which had resisted her from the beginning, is familiar now, and in a way she never thought it could be.

_Smells._ Filth and moisture and smouldering corpses. _Sounds._ Children crying and women shouting for them to shut the fuck up. The rumble of carts and carriages carried down from the busy streets above.

_Sights._ She reaches the door just as it opens, Anders' eyes widening in surprise as he greets her. He'd told her _good-bye_ the day before. Not _see you tomorrow_ or _maybe I'll come by to see how you're doing in a few days_. Good-bye. Yet here she is. At dawn. In templar garb and smiling brightly because she is glad to see him and relieved to know he's all right and aware that a bright smile will disarm him a bit and perhaps draw attention away from the fact of _good-bye._

Mostly, though, she smiles because the sight of _his face_ is exactly what she needs.

"Dangerous," his gaze drops to the flaming sword that blazes on her chest. "Don't tell me you've been out there all night."

"I wasn't going to," she steps neatly past him and then settles back against the doorframe.

"Are you _crazy_?" He's gone from shock, to wariness, to open disbelief. Granted, he might have a point. She's clearly avoiding dealing with her loss, and risking her own safety to do so. On the other hand, _his_ safety is worth it. Still, it's not something she wants to discuss with him because...it's just not something she wants to discuss with him.

Instead, looking at the dark smudges beneath his eyes that are slightly less _smudgy_ than they'd been the day before, she realizes that she has more than one reason to be here.

"A touchy subject, don't you think? Even _I_ know not to ask a person _that_," she waves off his incredulity and continues as if he'd raised no protest. "I wanted to talk to you about the Wardens."

"I've already told you more than I should have," he exhales.

"Yes. But you don't know how mothers can be. Always wanting to know exactly what _kind_ of super secret organization of legendary warriors their children are joining. I told her I thought it was like the sewing circle she had in Lothering, but with more dismemberment," Wil winces. "That just made her cry harder."

It was a lie. If she admitted how little she's spoken to her mother about what happened in the Deep Roads, she might have to confront the fact that she's doing _something_ wrong.

But it sounds good. Better than _Yesterday I caught myself wishing that the templars had taken Beth_. Better by far than _She wanted to die, and I took that choice away from her for selfish reasons._

And Anders buys it. "It will be hard for her at first. The nightmares aren't the only thing that changes when you become a Warden, but it's not anything I can describe. It's better than death..." he hesitates. "It's better than death, but it might be a long time before _she_ realizes that. One of the benefits of hating my life was that becoming a Warden seemed like a free pass at normalcy to me. I never understood why the Commander always apologized for Conscripting me until she was gone and..."

"_And_?" Wil's heart hurts. The idea of her sister out there, resenting her for making an impossible decision. It's nothing she could have ever foreseen...Carver, sure. He could probably subsist quite well on a steady diet of resentment. But Bethany?

"Bethany might never forgive you, but you did the right thing."

She's stuck on _might never forgive you_, keenly aware of everything she has lost in that one observation. Not only her sister, but the hitherto unshakeable love and support of the truest sort of friend. For the first time since yesterday afternoon, tears burn her eyes.

"_Wil_," Anders' gaze darts to the ground, but his voice is warm enough make up for it. "She'll survive. And you will, too."

"I know," she says it too quickly, but decides to take it as a truth that helps to pull her together. She can't really depend on Anders for that, anyway. He has his own trauma to deal with, in addition to whatever Justice wants him to do next. She snorts softly, imagining Justice must be quite relieved that Anders is no longer beholden to her and it's a bitter sort of amusement because she wants Anders to be someone who is...her skin warms at the mere suggestion of an unformed notion and it's not at all a physical urge.

_Dammit, Wil. You're starting to have feelings. _

And she was. Real feelings. Or rather, all the feelings she's been pushing aside these past few months in the shadows of the _Warning Wil_...all the things she's not been comfortable confronting or acknowledging because what on earth could she do with them in the face of _I can't be with anyone_? And how does she reconcile this need to share her grief with him when he already has so much of his own? She moves as if to leave, aware that it's probably for the best. "I shouldn't put this on you, Anders. You have your own concerns and, without you..."

"I'll spare you the discomfort of laying it out," with a smirk, Anders interrupts her out of the blue serious attempt to thank him. "I know that you're grateful."

"Do you? Or are you just trying to keep me from saying something monumentally stupid?" _Dammit again, Wilhelmina. He didn't mean anything by it._ "Listen, I realize how I must come across to you. To everyone. I'm not always very...nice or _serious_, but I love my sister. You have no idea how much it means...," Wil shivers and looks down to where her hands are twisting against each other, trying to distract her from the _awkward_. She has no idea what she's saying, or why she's so defensive. All she knows is that...

"I have never met a person more loved than Bethany," for a second, an elegant hand moves as if he might take one of hers in it. In the end, he keeps to himself, but it's a small slight in the face of what he's saying and how he's saying it, his voice sweetly sincere and adoration plain in his amber eyes. "If every mage had someone like you in their lives, someone who cherished them as a person, who was willing to fight for their rights as if they were their own...I've been jealous of Bethany since the day I met her, and not just because she's been free her entire life."

"Anders," Wil breathes his name and _oh_. That was _not_ simply _Anders_. That was..._Maker's breath, that was 'I love you'. Or...'I think I love you'. Or 'you just said something that moved me from desire with an overwhelming amount of like into love' and...maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was just Anders._

But when she looks at him, she knows without asking that he'd heard it, too. And from the adorable way that even his _eyebrows_ are smiling in soft relief, he clearly doesn't _hate_ the idea of her saying his name but meaning _I love you_.

_Or I think I love you. Or..._

"You should leave," it cuts through whatever quiet ebullience she's feeling. From his expression and the hard tone of his voice, Anders is no longer relieved. He's also no longer willing to talk, turning his back on her but _I know what I saw...he was happy. Right?_ She grabs his wrist before he can get too far away, not thinking in any rational sense, but panicking because she'd just laid herself out almost completely bare and now he's...

_What did you expect, Wil? Apparently Bethany is alive and well in your unwillingness to see this non-relationship for what it really is._

"Mina. _Please_."

_Fuck. _Something falls apart inside her, something she never knew was holding her together.

In front of her, Anders shakes his head.

"You're lost right now. You're lost, and without the one person who could find you and...I hate that you're hurting. I hate seeing you grieve. Wil...," her name catches in his throat because her fingers have tightened around his wrist in anticipation. Even though he's admitting as much as she had, she doesn't want to hear it anymore. "I don't ever want to be responsible for causing you that much pain...and I will. I will break your heart and you would let me and I just...I _won't_ do it," there is no room for argument there. "Not to you. You're too...there's only one sure way that I know to avoid it."

_Of course. _He's an abomination. His life is high risk, _and_ he has priorities._ Absolutely_. But she holds on. She holds on because once she's not holding on, she'll be lost again and something tells her that Anders doesn't have the maps that will help her navigate her life in the aftermath of losing Bethany, and now him.

She can't see his face. All she can see is his honey-colored hair in need of a good washing and his still dirty robes that she could have offered to take up yesterday. Maybe this would have been avoided if she'd insisted on things staying as they'd been before the expedition...if she'd went for normalcy rather than trying to force them both through a door that he's been trying so hard to keep closed, despite how he feels. Despite what she feels for him.

_More than I've ever..._

Wil doesn't remember the letting go. She doesn't remember leaving, or the climb back to her perch on the riser in the undercity, where she settles down because the templars might raid during the day in the hopes that he will come peacefully, rather than risk any of his patients.

She should see Aveline. She should tell her what happened to Bethany, but she knows it will only stir painful memories of Wesley, and how _his_ only option was death.

So she'll stay here. It's an excuse to keep from going home. It's an excuse to wallow in rejection, even if she understands why it had to be.

It's an excuse to avoid having to explain what happened, to receive sympathy for failing.

And sadly enough, it's the only thing she knows to do.

_This is how my grand adventure ends. Sitting in undercity filth like an emotional zombie._ Wil bows her head and tries not to think too hard about it, how an existence, lovingly mapped with all the best details sketched in for her has become a blank parchment and she left alone to draw life back in. Wil can't see it now, or even begin to imagine, but it _will_ take form. In time. There will be tearspots and bloodstains, and possibly even a vivid scorch mark from an errant lightning spell. The legend will contain hearts of all types and sizes, dragons and a baffling variety of rude doodles, but it will be better than what came before.

Someday it will be better than what came before.

Because she'll have no doubt that it is _hers_.

* * *

><p><strong>Notes from SF:<strong> Thus endeth Act 1. And _Maps & Legends_. As I planned this grand retelling as three distinct stories to correspond with each Act of Dragon Age 2, _Life and How to Live It_ will start going up (hopefully) within the week. It will pick up shortly after _Maps & Legends_ ends, so you will get to see my attempts at plotty stuff and whatnot.

Lucky you guys!

I would like to sincerely thank everyone that read or reviewed but especially: Sandtigress, MelRedux, Miri1984, Evilnor, Ashyraine, ZoEva, Naomis8329, YamiSnuffles, Emmav, Lillian-hime and, most of all, Keldjinfae. All of you provided me with feedback, support, inspiration, fic therapy and ideas and I can't properly express my gratitude _ever_, so I'll just leave it at _thanks, guys. _


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